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THE SKETCH-BOOK 



By 
WASHINGTON IRVING 



I have no wife, nor children, good or bad, to provide for. A mere 
spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play their 
parts, which, methinks, are diversely presented unto me, as from a com- 
mon theatre scene. — Burton. 




GROSSET & DUNLAP 

Publishers New York 



ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST AMERICAN 

EDITION. 

The following writings are published on experiment; 
should they please, they may be followed by others. The 
writer will have to contend with some disadvantages. He is 
unsettled in his abode, subject to interruptions, and has his 
share of cares and vicissitudes. He cannot, therefore, 
promise a regular plan, nor regular periods of publication. 
Should he be encouraged to proceed, much time may elapse 
between the appearance of his numbers; and their size will 
depend on the materials he may have on hand. His writings 
will partake of the fluctuations of his own thoughts and feel- 
ings; sometimes treating of scenes before him, sometimes of 
others purely imaginary, and sometimes wandering back with 
his recollections to his native country. He will not be able 
to give them that tranquil attention necessary to finished com- 
position; and as they must be transmitted across the Atlantic 
for publication, he will have to trust to others to correct the 
frequent errors of the press. Should his writings, however, 
with all their imperfections, be well received, he cannot con- 
ceal that it would be a source of the purest gratification; for 
though he does not aspire to those high honors which are the 
rewards of loftier intellects; yet it is the dearest wish of his 
heart to have a secure and cherished, though humble comer 
in the good opinions and kind feelings of his countrymen. 

London, 1819. 






ADVEETISEMENT TO THE EIEST ENGLISH 

EDITION 

The following desultory papers are part of a series written 
in this country, but published in America. The author is 
aware of the austerity with which the writings of his country- 
men have hitherto been treated by British critics; he is con- 
scious, too, that much of the contents of his papers can be 
interesting only in the eyes of American readers. It was not 
his intention, therefore, to have them reprinted in this coun- 
try. He has, however, observed several of them from time to 
time inserted in periodical works of merit, and has under- 
stood that it was probable they would be republished in a 
collective form. He has been induced, therefore, to revise 
and bring them forward himself, that they may at least come 
correctly before the public. Should they be deemed of suffi- 
cient importance to attract the attention of critics, he solicits 
for them that courtesy and candor which a stranger has some 
right to claim who presents himself at the threshold of a hos- 
pitable nation. 

February, 1820. 



CONTENTS. 



PAQB 

The Author's Account op Himself, 7 

The Voyage, 11 

RoscoE, . . 16 

The Wife, 23 

Rip Van Winkle, 30 

English Writers on America, ...... 45 

Rural Life in England, 53 

The Broken Heart, ........ 59 

The Art op Book-making, . 64 

A Royal Poet, 70 

The Country Church, 83 

The Widow and her Son, 87 

The Boar's Head Tavern, Eastcheap, . . . . .93 

The Mutability of Literature, . . . . . 103 

Rural Funerals, 113 

The Inn-Kitcelen, 133 

The Specter Bridegroom, 134 

Westminster Abbey, ........ 138 

Christmas, 148 

The Stage Coach, 153 

Christmas Eve, 158 

Christmas Day, . . . ... . . . 168 

The Christmas Dinner, 180 

Little Britain, 193 

Stratford-on-Avon, ......... 206 

Traits op Indian Character, .... . . 223 

Philip op Pokanoket, ........ 233 

John Bull, 347 

The Pride op the Village, 357 

The Angler, . . . 365 

The Legend op Sleepy Hollow, 373 

L'Envoy, 301 



THE AUTHOR'S ACCOIHSTT OF HIMSELF. 

■• I am of this mind with Homer, that as the snaile that crept out of her 
shel was turned eftsoones into a toad, and thereby was forced to make a 
stoole to sit on ; so the traveller that stragleth from his owne country is 
in a short time transformed into so monstrous a shape, that he is f aine 
to alter his mansion with his manners, and to live where he can, not 
where he would, — Lyly's Euphuea. 

I WAS always fond of visiting new scenes, and observing 
strange characters and manners. Even when a mere child I 
began my travels, and made many tours of discovery into for- 
eign parts and unknown regions of my native city, to the 
frequent alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the town 
crier. As I grew into boyhood, I extended the range of my 
observations. My holiday afternoons were spent in rambles 
about the surrounding country. I made myself familiar with 
all its places famous in history or fable. I knew every spot 
where a murder or robbery had been committed, or a ghost 
seen. I visited the neighboring villages, and added greatly to 
my stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and customs, 
and conversing with their sages and great men. I even jour- 
neyed one long summer's day to the summit of the most 
distant hill, from whence I stretched my eye over many a 
mile of terra incognita, and was astonished to find how vast 
a globe I inhabited. 

This rambling propensity strengthened with my years. 
Books of voyages and travels became my passion, and in de- 
vouring their contents, I neglected the regular exercises of 
the school. How wistfully would I wander about the pier 
heads in fine weather, and watch the parting ships, bound to 
distant climes — with what longing eyes would I gaze after 
their lessening sails, and waft myself in imaginations to the 
ends of the earth! 

Farther reading and thinking, though they brought this 
vague incKnation into more reasonable bounds, only served 
to make it more decided. I visited various parts of my own 
country; and had I been merely influenced by a love of fine 
scenery, I should have felt little desire to seek elsewhere its 



8 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

gratification: for on no country have the charms of nature 
been more prodigally lavished. Her mighty lakes^ like 
oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with their bright 
aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tre- 
mendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her bound- 
less plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad deep 
rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless 
forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her 
skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious 
sunshine: — no, never need an American look beyond his own 
country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery. 

But Europe held forth all the charms of storied and 
poetical association. There were to be seen the masterpieces 
of art, the refinements of highly cultivated society, the quaint 
peculiarities of ancient and local custom. My native country 
was full of youthful promise; Europe was rich in the accu- 
mulated treasures of age. Her very ruins told the history of 
times gone by, and every moldering stone was a chronicle. I 
longed to wander over the scenes of renowned achievement — 
to tread, as it were, in the footsteps of antiquity — ^to loiter 
about the ruined castle — to meditate on the falling tower — 
to escape, in short, from the commonplace realities of the 
present, and lose myself among the shadowy grandeurs of the 
past. 

I had, beside all this, an earnest desire to see the great men 
of the earth. We have, it is true, our great men in America: 
not a city but has an ample share of them. I have mingled 
among them in my time, and been almost withered by the 
shade into which they cast me; for there is nothing so baleful 
to a small man as the shade of a great one, particularly the 
great man of a city. But I was anxious to see the great men 
of Europe; for I had read in the works of various philoso- 
phers, that all animals degenerated in America, and man 
among the number. A great man of Europe, thought I, 
must therefore be as superior to a great man of America as a 
peak of the Alps to a highland of the Hudson; and in this 
idea I was confirmed, by observing the comparative impor- 
tance and swelling magnitude of many English travelers 
among us, who, I was assured, were very little people in their 
own country. I will visit this land of wonders, thought I, 
and see the gigantic race from which I am degenerated. 

It has been either my good or evil lot to have my roving 
passion gratified. I have wandered through different coun- 



THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. 9 

tries, and witnessed many of the shifting scenes of life. I 
cannot say that I have studied them with the eye of a phi- 
losopher, bnt rather with the sauntering gaze with which 
humble lovers of the picturesque stroll from the window of 
one print-shop to another; caught sometimes by the delinea- 
tions of beauty, sometimes by the distortions of caricature, 
and sometimes by the loveliness of landscape. As it is the 
fashion for modem tourists to travel pencil in hand, and 
bring home their portfolios filled with sketches, I am disposed 
to get up a few for the entertainment of my friends. When, 
however, I look over the hints and memorandums I have 
taken down for the purpose, my heart almost fails me, at find- 
ing how my idle humor has led me aside from the great ob- 
jects studied by every regular traveler who would make a 
book. I fear I shall give equal disappointment with an un- 
lucky landscape-painter, who had traveled on the Continent, 
but following the bent of his vagrant inclination, had 
sketched in nooks, and comers, and by-places. His sketch- 
book was accordingly crowded with cottages, and landscapes, 
and obscure ruins; but he had neglected to paint St. Peter's 
or the Coliseum; the Cascade of Temi or the bay of Naples; 
and had not a single glacier or volcano in his whole collection. 



THE SKETCH-BOOK 



OP 



GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. 



I have no wife nor children, good or had, to provide for. A mere 
spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they play 
their parts; which, methinks, are diversely presented unto me, as from a 
common theater or scene. — Bukton. 

THE VOYAGE. 

Ships, ships, I will descrie you 
Amidst the main, 
*'i I will come and try you, 
%, What you are protecting, 
%- And projecting. 

What's your end and aim. 
One goes abroad for merchandise and trading. 
Another stays to keep his country from invading, 
A third is coming home with rich and wealthy ladings 
Hallo! my fancie, whither wilt thou go? 

— Old Poem. 

To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage lie has to 
make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of 
worldly scenes and employments produces a state of mind 
pecuUarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The 
vast space of waters that separates the hemispheres is like a 
blank page in existence. There is no gradual transition by 
which, as in Europe, the features and population of one coun- 
try blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From 
the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is 
vacancy, until you step on the opposite shore, and are 
launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another 
world. 

In traveHng by land there is a continuity of scene, and a 
connected succession of persons and incidents, that carry on 
the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separa- 
tion. We drag, it is true, " a lengthening chain " at each re- 



V 



12 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

move of our pilgrimage; but the chain is unbroken; we can 
trace it back link by link; and we feel that the last of them 
still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us 
at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the 
secure anchorage of settled lif e^ and sent adrift upon a doubt- 
ful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, but 
real, between us and our homes — a gulf, subject to tempest, 
and fear, and uncertainty, that makes distance palpable, and 
return precarious. 

Such at least was the case with myself. As I saw the last 
blue line of my native land fade away like a cloud in the hori- 
zon, it seemed as if I had closed one volume of the world and 
its concerns, and had time for meditation, before I opened 
another. That land, too, now vanishing from my view, 
which contained all that was most dear to me in life; what 
vicissitudes might occur in it — what changes might take place 
in me, before I should visit it again! Who can tell, when he 
sets forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the uncer- 
tain currents of existence; or when he may return; or whether 
it may be ever his lot to revisit the scenes of his childhood? 

I said, that at sea all is vacancy; I should correct the ex- 
pression. To one given to day dreaming, and fond of losing 
himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for medi- 
tation; but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the 
air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. 
I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing or climb to the 
maintop, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the 
tranquil bosom of a summer sea; — to gaze upon the piles of 
golden clouds just peering above the horizon; fancy them 
some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my 
own; — to watch the gentle undulating billows, rolling their 
silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores. 

There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and 
awe with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the 
monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols: shoals of por- 
poises tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus 
slowly heaving his huge form above the surface; or the raven- 
ous shark, darting like a specter, through the blue waters. 
My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read 
of the watery world beneath me: of the finny herds that roam 
its fathomless valleys; of the shapeless monsters that lurk 
among the very foundations of the earth, and of those wild 
phantasms that swell the tales of fishermen and sailors. 



THE VOYAGE. 13 

Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the 
ocean, would he another theme of idle speculation. How 
interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the 
great mass of existence! What a glorious monument of hu- 
man invention; that has thus triumphed over wind and wave; 
has brought the ends of the world into communion; has 
established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the 
sterile regions of the north all the luxuries of the south; has 
diffused the light of knowledge, and the charities of culti- 
vated life; and has thus bound together those scattered por- 
tions of the human race, between which nature seemed to 
have thrown an insurmountable barrier. 

We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a dis- 
tance. At sea, everything that breaks the monotony of the 
surounding expanse attracts attention. It proved to be the 
mast of a ship that must have been completely wrecked; for 
there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of 
the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their 
being washed off by the waves. There was no trace by which 
the name of the ship could be ascertained. The wreck had 
evidently drifted about for many months; clusters of shell- 
fish had fastened about it, and long seaweeds flaunted at its 
sides. But where, thought I, is the crew? Their struggle 
has long been over — ^they have gone down amidst the roar of 
the tempest — their bones lie whitening among the caverns 
of the deep. Silence, oblivion, like the waves, have closed 
over them, and no one can tell the story of their end. What 
sighs have been wafted after that ship; what prayers offered 
up at the deserted fireside of home! How often has the mis- 
tress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to 
catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the deep! 
How has expectation darkened into anxiety — anxiety into 
dread, and dread into despair! Alas! not one memento shall 
ever return for love to cherish. All that shall ever be known, 
is, that she sailed from her port, " and was never heard of 
more! " 

The sight of this wreck, as usual, gave rise to many dismal 
anecdotes. This was particularly the case in the evening, 
when the weather, which had hitherto been fair, began to 
look wild and threatening, and gave indications of one of 
those sudden storms that will sometimes break in upon the 
serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat round the dull light 
of a lamp, in the cabin^ that made the gloom more ghastly^ 



14 THE SKETGR-BOOK, 

everyone had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. I was par- 
ticularly struck with a short one related by the captain: 

" As I was once sailing," said he, " in a fine, stout ship, 
across the banks of Newfoundland, one of those heavy fogs 
that prevail in those parts rendered it impossible for us to 
see far ahead, even in the daytime; but at night the weather 
was so thick that we could not distinguish any object at twice 
the length of the ship. I kept lights at the. masthead, and 
a constant watch forward to look out for fishing smacks, 
which are accustomed to lie at anchor on the banks. The 
wind was blowing a smacking breeze, and we were going at 
a great rate through the water. Suddenly the watch gave 
the alarm of ' a sail ahead! ' — it was scarcely uttered before 
we were upon her. She was a small schooner, at anchor, 
with a broadside toward us. The crew were all asleep, and 
had neglected to hoist a light. We struck her just amid- 
ships. The force, the size, the weight of our vessel bore her 
down below the waves; we passed over her and were hurried 
on our course. As the crashing wreck was sinking beneath 
us I had a glimpse of two or three half -naked wretches rush- 
ing from her cabin; they just started from their beds to be 
swallowed shrieking by the waves. I heard their drowning 
cry mingling with the wind. The blast that bore it to our 
ears swept us out of all farther hearing. I shall never forget 
that cry! It was some time before we could put the ship 
about, she was under such headway. . We returned as nearly 
as we could guess, to the place where the smack had anchored. 
We cruised about for several hours in the dense fog. We 
fired signal-guns, and listened if we might hear the halloo 
of any survivors; but all was silent — we never saw or heard 
anything of them more." 

I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to all my 
fine fancies. The storm increased with the night. The sea 
was lashed into tremendous confusion. There was a fearful, 
sullen sound of rushing waves and broken surges. Deep 
called unto deep. At times the black volume of clouds over- 
head seemed rent asunder by flashes of lightning that quiv- 
ered along the foaming billows and made the succeeding 
darkness doubly terrible. The thunders bellowed over the 
wild waste of waters, and were echoed and prolonged by the 
mountain waves. As I saw the ship staggering and plung- 
ing among these roaring caverns, it seemed miraculous that 
she regained her balance or preserved her buoyancy. Her 



THE VOYAQK 15 

yards would dip into the water; her bow was almost buried 
beneath the waves. Sometimes an impending surge appeared 
ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a dexterous move- 
ment of the helm preserved her from the shock. 

When I retired to my cabin the awful scene still followed 
me. The whistling of the wind through the rigging sounded 
like funereal wailings. The creaking of the masts; the 
straining and groaning of bulkheads, as the ship labored in 
the weltering sea, were frightful. As I heard the waves 
rushing along the side of the ship and roaring in my very 
ear, it seemed as if Death were raging round this floating 
prison, seeking for his prey: the mere starting of a nail, the 
yawning of a seam, might give him entrance. 

A fine day, however, with a tranquil sea and favoring 
breeze, soon put all these dismal reflections to flight. It is 
impossible to resist the gladdening influence of fine weather 
and fair wind at sea. When the ship is decked out in all her 
canvas, every sail swelled, and careering gayly over the curl- 
ing waves, how lofty, how gallant, she appears — ^how she 
seems to lord it over the deep! I might fill a volume with the 
reveries of a sea voyage; for with me it is almost a continual 
reverie — but it is time to get to shore. 

It was a fine sunny morning when the thrilling cry of 
*' Land! " was given from the masthead. None but those 
who have experienced it can form an idea of the delicious 
throng of sensations which rush into an American's bosom 
when he first comes in sight of Europe. There is a volume 
of associations with the very name. It is the land of promise, 
teeming with everything of which his childhood has heard, 
or on which his studious years have pondered. ^ 

From that time until the moment of arrival, it was all 
feverish excitement. The ships of war, that prowled like 
guardian giants along the coast; the headlands of Ireland 
stretching into the Channel; the Welsh mountains, towering 
into the clouds; all were objects of intense interest. Ag we 
sailed up the Mersey I reconnoitered the shores with a 
telescope. My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with 
their trim shrubberies and green grassplots. I saw the 
moldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper 
spire of a village church rising from the brow of a neighbor- 
ing hill — all were characteristic of England. 

The tide and wind were so favorable that the ship was 
enabled to come at once to the pier. It was thronged with 



16 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

people; some idle lookers-on, others eager expectants of 
friends or relatives. I could distingnisli the merchant to 
whom the ship was consigned. I know him by his calculat- 
ing brow and restless air. His hands were thrust into his 
pockets, he was whistling thoughtfully, and walking to and 
fro, a small space having been accorded him by the crowd, 
in deference to his temporary importance. There were re- 
peated cheerings and salutations interchanged between the 
shore and the ship, as friends happened to recognize each 
other. I particularly noticed one young woman of humble 
dress but interesting demeanor. She was leaning forward 
from among the crowd; her eye hurried over the ship as it 
neared the shore, to catch some wished-f or countenance. She 
seemed disappointed and agitated; when I heard a faint voice 
call her name. It was from a poor sailor who had been ill 
all the voyage', and had excited the sympathy of everyone on 
board. When the weather was fine, his messmates had spread 
a mattress for him on deck in the shade, but of late his illness 
had so increased that he had taken to his hammock, and only 
breathed a wish that he might see his wife before he died. 
He had been helped on deck as we came up the river, and 
was now leaning against the shrouds, with a countenance so 
wasted, sO' pale, so ghastly that it was no wonder even the 
eye of affection did not recognize him. But at the sound 
of his voice her eye darted on his features; it read, at once, 
a whole volume of sorrow; she clasped her hands, uttered a 
faint shriek, and stood wringing them in silent agony. 

All now was hurry and bustle. The meetings of acquaint- 
ances — the greetings of friends — the consultations of men of 
business. I alone was solitary and idle. I had no friend to 
meet, no cheering to receive. I stepped upon the land of my 
forefathers — ^but felt that I was a stranger in the land. 



EOSCOE. 

In the service of mankind to be 
A guardian god below; still to employ 
The mind's brave ardor in heroic aims, 
Such as may raise us o'er the groveling herd. 
And make us shine for ever— that is life. 

— Thomson. 

On"E of the first places to which a stranger is taken in 
Liverpool is the Athenaeum. It is established on a liberal 



noscoK IV 

and judicious plan; it contains a good library and spacious 
reading room^ and is the great literary resort of the place. 
Go there at what hour you may, you are sure to find it filled 
with grave-looking personages, deeply absorbed in the study 
of newspapers. 

As I was once visiting this haunt of the learned, my atten- 
tion was attracted to a person just entering the room. He 
was advanced in life, tall, and of a form that might once 
have been commanding, but it was a little bowed by time^ — 
perhaps by care. He had a noble Eoman style of counte- 
nance; a head that would have pleased a painter; and though 
some slight furrows on h^'s brow showed that wasting thought 
had been busy there, yet his eye still beamed with the fire 
of a poetic soul. There was something in his whole appear- 
ance that indicated a being of a different order from the 
bustling race around him. 

I inquired his name, and was informed that it was EoscoE. 
I drew back with an involuntary feeling of veneration. This, 
then, was an author of celebrity; this was one of those men 
whose voices have gone forth to the ends of the earth; with 
whose minds I have communed even in the solitudes of 
America. Accustomed, as we are in our country, to know 
European writers only by their works, we cannot conceive 
of them, as of other men, engrossed by trivial or sordid pur- 
suits, and jostling with the crowd of common minds in the 
dusty paths of life. They pass before our imaginations like 
superior beings, radiant with the emanations of their own 
genius, and surrounded by a halo of literary glory. 

To find, therefore, the elegant historian of the Medici min- 
gling among the busy sons of traffic, at first shocked my 
poetical ideas; but it is from the very circumstances and 
situation in which he has been placed, that Mr. Eoscoe de- 
rives his highest claims to admiration. It is interesting to 
notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves; 
springing up under every disadvantage, and working their 
solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. 
Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of 
art, with which it would rear legitimate dullness to maturity; 
and to glory in the vigor and luxuriance of her chance pro- 
ductions. She scatters the seeds of genius to the winds, and 
though some may perish among the stony places of the world, 
and some be choked by the thorns and brambles of early 
adversity, yet others will now and then strike root even in 



18 THE 8KETGH-B00K 

tlie clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up into sunshine, and 
spread over their sterile birthplace all the beauties of 
vegetation. 

Such has been the case with Mr. Eoscoe. Born in a place 
apparently ungenial to the growth of literary talent; in the 
veiy market place of trade; without fortune, family connec- 
tions, or patronage; self -prompted, self -sustained, and almost 
self-taught, he has conquered every obstacle, achieved his 
way to eminence, and having become one of the ornaments 
of the nation, has turned the whole force of his talents and 
influence to advance and embellish his native town. 

Indeed, it is this last trait of his character which has given 
him the greatest interest in my eyes, and induced me particu- 
larly to point him out to my countrymen. Eminent as are 
his literary merits, he is but one among the many distin- 
guished authors of this intellectual nation. They, however, 
in general, live but for their own fame, or their own pleas- 
ures. Their private history presents no lesson to the world, 
or, perhaps, a humiliating one of human frailty and incon- 
sistency. At best, they are prone to steal away from the 
bustle and commonplace of busy existence; to indulge in the 
selfishness of lettered ease; and to revel in scenes of mental, 
but exclusive enjoyment. 

Mr. Eoscoe, on the contrary, has claimed none of the ac- 
corded privileges of talent. He has shut himself up in no 
garden of thought, nor elysium of fancy; but has gone forth 
into the highways and thoroughfares of life; he has planted 
bowers by the wayside, for the refreshment of the pilgrim 
and the sojourner, and has opened pure fountains, where the 
laboring man may turn aside from the dust and heat of the 
day, and drink of the living streams of knowledge. There is 
a " daily beauty in his life," on which mankind may meditate 
and grow better. It exhibits no lofty and almost useless, 
because inimitable, example of excellence; but presents a pic- 
ture of active, yet simple and imitable virtues, which are 
within every man^s reach, but which, unfortunately, are not 
exercised by many, or this world would be a paradise. 

But his private life is peculiarly worthy the attention of the 
citizens of our young and busy country, where literature and 
the elegant arts must grow up side by side with the coarser 
plants of daily necessity; and must depend for their culture, 
not on the exclusive devotion of time and wealth; nor the 
quickening rays of titled patronage; but on hours and seasons 



BOSCOE, 19 

snatched from the pursuit of worldly interests, by intelligent 
and public-spirited individuals. 

He has shown how much may be done for a place in hours 
of leisure by one master spirit^ and how completely it can give 
its own impress to surrounding objects. Like his own 
Lorenzo de Medici, on whom he seems to have fixed his eye as 
on a pure model of antiquity, he has interwoven the history 
of his life with the history of his native town, and has made 
the foundations of its fame the monuments of his virtues. 
Wherever you go in Liverpool you perceive traces of his foot- 
steps in all that is elegant and liberal. He found the tide of 
wealth flowing merely in the channels of trafiic; he has di- 
verted from it invigorating rills to refresh the gardens of 
literature. By his own example and constant exertions he 
has effected that union of commerce and the intellectual pur- 
suits, so eloquently recommended in one of his latest writ- 
ings;* and has practically proved how beautifully they may 
be brought to harmonize and to benefit each other. The 
noble institutions for literary and scientific purposes, which 
reflect such credit on Liverpool, and are giving such an im- 
pulse to the public mind, have mostly been originated, and 
have all been effectively promoted by Mr. Eoscoe; and when 
we consider the rapidly increasing opulence and magnitude 
of that town, which promises to vie in commercial importance 
with the metropolis, it will be perceived that in awakening 
an ambition of mental improvement among its inhabitants 
he has effected a great benefit to the cause of British 
literature. 

In America we know Mr. Eoscoe only as the author — ^in 
Liverpool he is spoken of as the banker; and I was told of his 
having been unfortunate in business. I could not pity him, 
as I heard some rich men do. I considered him far above 
the reach of my pity. Those who live only for the world, 
and in the world, may be cast down by the frowns of ad- 
versity; but a man like Eoscoe is not to be overcome by the 
reverses of fortune. They do but drive him in upon the 
resources of his own mind; to the superior society of his own 
thoughts; which the best of men are apt sometimes to neglect, 
and to roam abroad in search of less worthy associates. He 
is independent of the world around him. He lives with 
antiquity and with posterity: with antiquity, in the sweet 

* Address on tlie opening of the Liverpool Institution. 



20 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

commumon of studious retirement; and with posterity in the 
generous aspirings after future renown. The solitude of such 
a mind is its state of highest enjoyment. It is then visited 
by those elevated meditations which are the proper aliment 
of noble souls^ and are, like manna., sent from heaven, in the 
wilderness of this world. 

While my feelings were yet alive on the subject, it was my 
fortune to light on farther traces of Mr. Roscoe. I v/as rid- 
ing out with a gentleman to view the environs of Liverpool 
when he turned off through a gate into some ornamented 
grounds. After riding a short distance we came to a spacious 
mansion of freestone, built in the Grecian style. It was not 
in the purest taste, yet it had an air of elegance, and the 
situation was delightful. A fine lawn sloped away from it, 
studded with clumps of trees, so disposed as to break a soft 
fertile country into a variety of landscapes. The Mersey 
was seen winding a broad quiet sheet of water through an 
expanse of green meadow land; while the Welsh mountains, 
blending with clouds and melting into distance, bordered the 
horizon. 

This was Roscoe's favorite residence during the days of his 
prosperity. It had been the seat of elegant hospitality and 
literary refinement. The house was now silent and deserted. 
I saw the windows of the study, which looked out upon the 
soft scenery I have mentioned. The windows were closed — 
the library was gone. Two or three ill-favored beings were 
loitering about the place, whom my fancy pictured into re- 
tainers of the law. It was like visiting some classic fountain 
Miat had once welled its pure waters in a sacred shade, but 
finding it dry and dusty, with the lizard and the toad brood- 
ing over the shattered marbles. 

I inquired after the fate of Mr. Roscoe's library, which had 
consisted of scarce and foreign books, from many of which 
he had drawn the materials for his Italian histories. It had 
passed under Oie hammer of the auctioneer, and was dis- 
persed about the country. 

The good people of the vicinity thronged like wreckers to 
get some part of the noble vessel that had been driven on 
shore. Did such a scene admit of ludicrous associations we 
might imagine something whimsical in this strange irruption 
into the regions of learning. Pigmies rummaging the 
armory of a giant and contending for the possession of 
weapons which they could noi wield. We might picture to 



ROSGOE. 21 

ourselves some knot of speculators, debating with calculating 
brow over the quaint binding and illuminated margin of an 
obsolete author; or the air of intense, but baffled sagacity, 
with which some successful purchaser attempted to dive into 
the black-letter bargain he had secured. 

It is a beautiful incident in the story of Mr. Eoscoe's mis- 
fortunes, and one which cannot fail to interest the studious 
mind, that the parting with his books seems to have touched 
upon his tenderest feelings, and to have been the only cir- 
cumstance that could provoke the notice of his muse. The 
scholar only knows how dear these silent, yet eloquent, com- 
panions of pure thoughts and innocent hours, become in the 
season of adversity. When all that is worldly turns to dross 
around us, these only retain their steady value. When 
friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes 
into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the 
unaltered countenance of happier days and cheer us with that 
true friendship which never deceived hope nor deserted 
sorrow. 

I do not wish to censure; but, surely, if the people of Liver- 
pool had been properly sensible of what was due to Mr. 
Eoscoe and to themselves, his library would never have been 
sold. Good worldly reasons may, doubtless, be given for the 
circumstance, which it would be difficult to combat with 
others that might seem merely fanciful; but it certainly ap- 
pears to me such an opportunity as seldom occurs of cheer- 
ing a noble mind struggling under misfortunes by one of 
the most delicate, but most expressive tokens of public ^jvol- 
pathy. It is difficult, however, to estimate a man of genius 
properly who is daily before our eyes. He becomes min- 
gled and confounded with other men. His great qualities 
lose their novelty, and we become too familiar with the com- 
mon materials which form the basis even of the loftiest char- 
acter. Some of Mr. Eoscoe's townsmen may regard him 
merely as a man of business; other as a politician; all find 
him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations, and 
surpassed, perhaps, by themselves on some points of worldly 
wisdom. Even that amiable and unostentatious simplicity 
of character which gives the nameless grace to real excel- 
lence, may cause him to be undervalued by some coarse minds, 
who do not know that true worth is always void of 
glare and pretension. But the man of letters who speaks of 
Liverpool speaks of it as the residence of Eoscoe. The Intel- 



22 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

ligent traveler who visits it inquires where Roscoe is to be 
seen. He is the hterary landmark of the place, indicating 
its existence to the distant scholar. He is like Pompey's 
cohimn at Alexandria, towering alone in classic dignity. 

The following sonnet, addressed by Mr. Eoscoe to his 
books, on parting with them, is alluded to in the preceding 
article. If anything can add effect to the pure feeling and 
elevated thought here displayed, it is the conviction that the 
whole is no effusion of fancy, but a faithful transcript from 
the writer's heart: 

TO MY BOOKS. 

As one who, destined from his friends to part, 
Regrets his loss, but hopes again ere while 
To share their converse and enjoy their smile, 

And tempers, as he may, affliction's dart; 

Thus, loved associates, chiefs of elder art, 

Teachers of wisdom, who could once beguile 
My tedious hours, and lighten every toil, 

I now resign you; nor with fainting heart; 

For pass a few short years, or days, or hours. 
And happier seasons may their dawn unfold, 
And all your sacred fellowship restore; 
When freed from earth, unlimited its powers, 
Mind shall with mind direct communion hold, 
And kindred spirits meet to part no more. 



THE WIFE. 

The treasures of the deep are not so precious 
As are the concealed comforts of a man 
Lock'd up in woman's love. I scent the air 
Of blessings, when I come but near the house. 
What a delicious breath marriage sends forth — 
The violet bed's not sweeter! 

— MiDDLETON. 

I HAVE often had occasion to remark the fortitude with 
which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of for- 
tune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man 
and prostrate him in the dust seem to call forth all the ener- 
gies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation 
to their character that at times it approaches to sublimity. 
Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and 
tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence 
and alive to every trivial roughness while threading the pros- 



THE WIFE. 23 

perous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be 
the comforter and supporter of her husband under misfor- 
tune, and abiding, with unshrinking firmness, the bitterest 
blasts of adversity. 

As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage 
about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when 
the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it 
with its caressing tendrils and bind up its shattered boughs; 
so is it beautifully ordered by Providence that woman, who 
is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier 
hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden 
calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his 
nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head and binding 
up the broken heart. 

I was once congratulating a friend who had around him 
a blooming family knit together in the strongest affection. 
"I can wish you no better lot," said he, with enthusiasm, 
"than to have a wife and children. If you are prosperous, 
there they are to share your prosperity; if otherwise, there 
they are to comfort you." And, indeed, I have observed that 
a married man falling into misfortune, is more apt to retrieve 
his situation in the world than a single one; partly, because 
he is more stimulated to exertion by the necessities of the 
helpless and beloved beings who depend upon him for sub- 
sistence; but chiefly because his spirits are soothed and re- 
lieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respect kept 
alive by finding that though all abroad is darkness and 
humiliation, yet there is still a little world of love at home 
of which he is the monarch. Whereas, a single man is apt 
to run to waste and self -neglect; to fancy himself lonely and 
abandoned, and his heart to fall to ruin, like some deserted 
mansion, for want of an inhabitant. 

These observations call to mind a little domestic story of 
which I was once a witness. My intimate friend Leslie had 
married a beautiful and accomplished girl, who had been 
brought up in the midst of a fashionable life. She had, it is 
true, no fortune, but that of my friend was ample; and he 
delighted in the anticipation of indulging her in every ele- 
gant pursuit and administering to those delicate tastes and 
fancies that spread a kind of witchery about the sex. " Her 
life," said he, " shall be like a fairy tale." 

The very difference in their characters produced a har- 
monious combination; he was of a romantic and somewhat 



24 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

serious cast; she was all life and gladness. I have often 
noticed the mute rapture with which he would gaze upon her 
in company, of which her sprightly powers made her the 
delight; and how, in the midst of applause, her eye would 
still turn to him, as if there alone she sought favor and 
acceptance. When leaning on his arm her slender form con- 
trasted finely with his tall, manly person. The fond, confid- 
ing air with which she looked up to him seemed to call forth 
a flush of triumphant pride and cherishing tenderness, as if 
he doted on his lovely burden for its very helplessness. 
Never did a couple set forward on the flowery path of early 
and well-suited marriage with a fairer prospect of felicity. 

It was the misfortune of my friend, however, to have em- 
barked his property in large speculations; and he had not 
been married many months when, by a succession of sudden 
disasters, it was swept from him and he found himself reduced 
to almost penury. For a time he kept his situation to him- 
self, and went about with a haggard countenance and a break- 
ing heart. His life was but a protracted agony; and what 
rendered it more insupportable was the necessity of keeping 
up a smile in the presence of his wife; for he could not bring 
himself to overwhelm her with the news. She saw, however, 
with the quick eyes of affection, that all was not well with 
him. She marked his altered looks and stifled sighs, and was 
not to be deceived by his sickly and vapid attempts at cheer- 
fulness. She tasked all her sprightly powers and tender 
blandishments to win him back to happiness; but she only 
drove the arrow deeper into his soul. The more he saw cause 
to love her the more torturing was the thought that he was 
soon to make her wretched. A little while, thought he, and 
the smile will vanish from that cheek — the song will die 
away from those lips — the luster of those eyes will be 
quenched with sorrow — and the happy heart which now beats 
lightly in that bosom, will be weighed down, like mine, by 
the cares and miseries of the world. 

At length he came to me one day and related his whole 
situation in a tone of the deepest despair. When I had 
heard him through, I inquired, " Does your wife know all 
this?'' At the question he burst into an agony of tears. 
"For God's sake! " cried he, "if you have any pity on me, 
don't mention my wife; it is the thought of her that drives 
me almost to madness! " 

" And why not! " said I. " She must know it sooner or 



THE WIFE. 25 

later: you cannot keep it long from her^ and the intelligence 
may break upon her in a more startling manner than if im- 
parted by yourself; for the accents of those we love soften 
the harshest tidings. Besides^ you are depriving yourself of 
the comforts of her sympathy; and not merely that, but also 
endangering the only bond that can keep hearts together — 
an unreserved community of thought and feeling. She will 
soon perceive that something is secretly preying upon your 
mind; and true love will not brook reserve; it feels under- 
valued and outraged, when even the sorrows of those it loves 
are concealed from it." 

^' Oh, but my friend! to think what a blow I am to give 
to all her future prospects — how I am to strike her very soul 
to the earth by telling her that her husband is a beggar! — 
that she is to forego all the elegancies of life — all the pleas- 
ures of society — to shrink with me into indigence and 
obscurity! To tell her that I have dragged her down from 
the sphere in which she might have continued to move in 
constant brightness — the light of every eye — the admiration 
of every heart! How can she bear poverty? She has been 
brought up in all the refinements of opulence. How can she 
bear neglect? She has been the idol of society. Oh, it will 
break her heart — ^it will break her heart! " 

I saw his grief was eloquent, and I let it have its flow; for 
sorrow relieves itself by words. When his paroxysm had 
subsided, and he had relapsed into moody silence, I resumed 
the subject gently, and urged him to break his situation at 
once to his wife. He shook his head mournfully, but 
positively. 

" But how are you to keep it from her? It is necessary 
she should know it, that you may take the steps proper to 
the alteration of your circumstances. You must change your 
style of living — nay," observing a pang to pass across his 
countenance, " don't let that afflict you. I am sure you have 
never placed your happiness in outv/ard show — you have yet 
friends, warm friends, who will not think the worse of you 
for being less splendidly lodged; and surely it does not re- 
quire a palace to be happy with Mary — — " 

" I could be happy with her," cried he convulsively, " in a 
hovel! — I could go down vdth her into poverty and the dust! 
• — I could — I could — God bless her! — God bless her! " cried 
he, bursting into a transport of grief and tenderness. 

"And believe me^ my friend," said I, stepping up and 



26 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

grasping him warmly by the hand, " believe me, she can be 
the same with yon. Ay, more; it will be a source of pride 
and triumph to her — it will call forth all the latent energies 
and fervent sympathies of her nature; for she will rejoice to 
prove that she loves you for yourself. There is in every true 
woman^s heart a spark of heavenly fire which lies dormant 
in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up 
and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. No man 
knows what the wife of his bosom is — no man knows what 
a ministering angel she is — until he has gone with her 
through the fiery trials of the world." 

There was something in the eai-nestness of my manner 
and the figurative style of my language that caught the ex- 
cited imagination of Leslie. I knew the auditor I had to 
deal with; and following up the impression I had made, I 
finished by persuading him to go home and unburthen his 
sad heart to his wife. 

I must confess, notwithstanding all I had said, I felt some 
little solicitude for the result. Who can calculate on the 
fortitude of one whose whole life has been a round of pleas- 
ures? Her gay spirits might revolt at the dark, downward 
path of low humility, suddenly pointed out before her, and 
might cling to the sunny regions in which they had hitherto 
reveled. Besides, ruin in fashionable life is accompanied by 
so many galling mortifications, to which in other ranks it is 
a stranger. In short, I could not meet Leslie the next morn- 
ing without trepidation. He had made the disclosure. 

" And how did she bear it? " 

"Like an angel! It seemed rather to be a relief to her 
mind, for she threw her arms round my neck and asked if 
this was all that had lately made me unhappy. But, poor 
girl," added he, " she cannot realize the change we must 
undergo. She has no idea of poverty but in the abstract; 
she has. only read of it in poetry, where it is allied to love. 
She feels as yet no privation; she suffers no loss of accus- 
tomed conveniences nor elegancies. When we come prac- 
tically to experience its sordid cares, its paltry wants, its petty 
humiliations — then will be the real trial." 

" But," said I, " now that you have got over the severest 
task, that of breaking it to her, the sooner you let the world 
into the secret the better. The disclosure may be mortify- 
ing; but then it is a single misery and soon over; whereas you 
otherwise suffer it, in anticipation, every hour in the day. 



THE WIFE. 21 

It is not poverty &o much as pretense that harasses a ruined 
jxian — the struggle between a proud mind and an empty purse 
— the keeping up a hollow show that must soon come to an 
■end. Have the courage to appear poor, and you disarm pov- 
erty of its sharpest sting." On this point I found Leslie per- 
fectly prepared. He had no false pride himself, and, as to 
his wife, she was only anxious to conform to their altered 
fortunes. 

Some days afterward he called upon me in the evening. 
He had disposed of his dwelling-house, and taken a small cot- 
tage in the country, a few miles from town. He had been 
busied all day in sending out furniture. The new establish- 
ment required few articles, and those of the simplest kind. 
All the splendid furniture of his late residence had been sold, 
excepting his wife's harp. That, he said, was too closely 
associated with the idea of herself; it belonged to the little 
story of their loves; for some of the sweetest moments of their- 
courtship were those when he had leaned over that instru- 
ment and listened to the melting tones of her voice. I could 
not but smile at this instance of romantic gallantry in a 
doting husband. 

He was now going out to the cottage, where his wife has 
been all day, superintending its arrangement. My feelings 
had become strongly interested in the progress of this family 
story, and as it was a fine evening I offered to accompany 
him. 

He was wearied with the fatigues of the day, and as we 
walked out, fell into a fit of gloomy musing. 

" Poor Mary! " at length broke, with a heavy sigh, from 
his lips. 

" And what of her," asked I, " has anything happened to 
her? " 

" What," said he, darting an impatient glance, " is it noth- 
ing to be reduced to this paltry situation — to be caged in 
a miserable cottage — to be obliged to toil almost in the menial 
concerns of her wretched habitation? " 

" Has she then repined at the change? " 

" Eepined! she has been nothing but sweetness and good 
humor. Indeed, she seems in better spirits than I have ever 
known her; she has been to me all love, and tenderness, and 
comfort! " 

" Admirable girl! " exclaimed I. '^ You call yourself poor, 
my friend; you never were so rich — you never knew the 



28 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

boundless treasures of excellence you possessed in that 
woman/^ 

" Oh! butj my friend, if this first meeting at the cottage 
were over I think I could then be comfortable. But this is 
her first day of real experience; she has been introduced into 
an humble dwelling — she has been employed all day in ar- 
ranging its miserable equipments — she has for the first time 
known the fatigues of domestic employment — she has for 
the first time looked around her on a home destitute of every- 
thing elegant — almost of everything convenient; and may 
now be sitting down, exhausted and spiritless, brooding over 
a prospect of future poverty." 

There was a degree of probability in this picture that I 
could not gainsay, so we walked on in silence. 

After turning from the main road up a narrow lane, so 
thickly shaded by forest trees as to give it a complete air 
of seclusion, we came in sight of the cottage. It was humble 
enough in its appearance for the most pastoral poet; and yet 
it had a pleasing rural look. A wild vine had overrun one 
end with a profusion of foliage; a few trees threw their 
branches gracefully over it; and I observed several pots of 
flowers tastefully disposed about the door and on the grass- 
plot in front. A small wicket-gate opened upon a footpath 
that wound through some shrubbery to the door. Just as 
we approached we heard the sound of music. Leslie grasped 
my arm; we paused and listened. It' was Mary's voice, sing- 
ing, in a style of the most touching simplicity, a little air 
of which her husband was peculiarly fond. 

I felt Leslie's hand tremble on my arm. He stepped for- 
ward to hear more distinctly. His step made a noise on the 
gravel walk. A bright, beautiful face glanced out at the 
window and vanished — a light footstep was heard — and Mary 
came tripping- forth to meet us. She was in a pretty rural 
dress of white; a few wild flowers were twisted in her fine 
hair; a fresh bloom was on her cheek; her whole countenance 
beamed with smiles — I had never seen her look so lovely. 

" My dear George," cried she, *' I am so glad you are come; 
I have been watching and watching for you; and running 
down the lane and looking out for you. I've set out a table 
under a beautiful tree behind the cottage; and I've been 
gathering some of the most delicious strawberries, for I know 
you are fond of them — and we have such excellent cream — 
and everything is so sweet and still here. Oh! " said she^ 



RIP VAN WINKLE, 29 

putting her arm within his and looking up brightly in his 
face. " oh^ we- shall be so happy! " 

Poor Leslie was overcome. He caxight her to his bosom — 
he folded his arms round her — he kissed her again and again 
— he could not speak^ but the tears gushed into his eyes; and 
he has often assured me that though the world has since gone 
prosperously with him, and his life has indeed been a happy 
one, yet never has he experienced a moment of more ex- 
quisite f ehcity. 



[The following Tale was found among the papers of the 
late Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, 
who was very curious in the Dutch History of the province, 
and the manners of the descendants from its primitive set- 
tlers. His historical researches, however, did not lie so much 
among books as a.mong men; for the former are lamentably 
scanty on his favorite topics; whereas he fou.nd the old 
burghers, and still more, their wives, rich in that legendary 
lore so invaluable to true liistory. Whenever, therefore, he 
happened upon a genuine Dutch family, snugly shut up in 
its low-roofed farmhouse, under a spreading sycamore, he 
looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black letter, and 
studied it with the zeal of a bookworm. 

The result of all these researches was a history of the prov- 
ince, during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he 
published some years since. There have been various opin- 
ions as to the literary character of his work, and, to tell the 
truth, it is not a whit better than it should be. Its chief 
merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which, indeed, was a little 
questioned, on its first appearance, but has since been com- 
pletely established; and it is now admitted into all historical 
collections, as a book of unquestionable authority. 

The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his 
work, and now, that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much 
harm to his memory, to say, that his time might have been 
much better employed in weightier labors. He, however, was 
apt to ride his hobby his own way; and though it did now 
and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, 
and grieve the spirit of some friends for whom he felt the 
truest deference and affection, yet his errors and follies are 
remembered " more in sorrow than in anger," * and it begins 

* Vide the excellent discourse of G. C. Verplanck, Esq., before the 
New York Historical Society. 



30 THE 8KETGE-B00K. 

to be suspected, that lie never intended to injure or offend. 
But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is 
still held dear among many folk, whose good opinion is well 
worth having; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who 
have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their N'ew Year 
cakes, and have thus given him a chance for immortality, 
almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo medal, or a 
Queen Anne^s farthing.] 



EIP YAlSr WINKLE. 

A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDEICH KNICKEEBOCKEE. 

By Woden, God of Saxons, 

From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday, 

Truth is a thing that ever I will keep 

Unto thylke day in which I creep into 

My sepulchre. 

— Cartweight. 

Whoevee has made a voyage up the Hudson, must remem- 
ber the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dismembered 
branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to 
the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lord- 
ing it over the surrounding country. Every change of sea- 
son, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, 
produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these 
mountains; and they are regarded by all the good wives, far 
and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair 
and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print 
their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, 
when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather 
a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last 
rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of 
glory. 

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have 
descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose 
shingle roofs gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints 
of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer 
landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having 
been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the early 
times of the province, just about the beginning of the gov- 
ernment of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!) 



BlP VAN WINKLK 3l 

and there were some of the houses of the original settlers 
standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks 
brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable 
fronts, surmounted with weathercocks. 

In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, 
to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather 
beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was 
yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow, 
of the name of Eip Yan Winkle. He was a descendent of the 
Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days 
of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of 
Port Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the 
martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he 
was a simple, good-natured man; he was moreover a kind 
neighbor, and an obedient henpecked husband. Indeed, to 
the latter circumstances might be owing that meekness of 
spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those 
men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, 
who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tem- 
pers, doubtless., are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery 
furnace of domestic tribulation, and a curtain lecture is worth 
all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of 
patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, there- 
fore, in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and 
if so. Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed. 

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good 
wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took 
his part in all family squabbles, and never failed, whenever 
they talked these matters over in their evening gossipings, 
to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of 
the village, too, would shout with joy whenever he ap- 
proached. He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, 
taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told them 
long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians. Whenever he 
went dodging about the village, he was surrounded by a troop 
of them hanging on his sldrts, clambering on his back, and 
playing a thousand tricks on him with impunity; and not a 
dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood. 

The great error in Rip^s composition was an insuperable 
aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be 
from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit 
on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartarus lance, 
and fish all day without a murmur^ even though he should 



32 TEE 8EETGB-B00K, 

not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a 
fowling piece on Ms shoulder for houi'S together, trudging 
through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, 
to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never 
refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the roughest toil, and was 
a foremost man at all country frolics for husking Indian corn 
or building stone fences. The women of the village, too, 
used to employ him to run errands, and to do such odd jobs 
as their less obliging husbands would not do' for them; — ^in 
a word. Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his 
own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in 
order, he found it impossible. 

In fact he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; 
it was the most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole 
country; everything about it went wrong, and would go wrong 
in spite of him. His fences were continually falling to pieces; 
his cow would either go astray, or get among the cabbages; 
weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere 
else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had 
some outdoor work to do; so that though his patrimonial 
estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by 
acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of 
Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned 
farm in the neighborhood. 

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they be- 
longed to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his 
own likeness, promised to inherit the habits, with the old 
clothes of his father. He was generally seen trooping like 
a colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's 
cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with 
one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather. 

Bip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, 
of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, 
eat wliite bread or brown, whichever can be got with least 
thought or trouble, and would rather starve on a penny than 
work for a pound. If left to himself, he would have whistled 
life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continu- 
ally dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, 
and the ruin he was bringing on his family. 

Morning, noon, and night her tongue was incessantly 
going, and everything he said or did was sure to produce a 
torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of 
replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use. 



BIP VAN WINKLE. 33 

had grown into a ha,bit. He slinigged Ms shoulders, shook 
his head, cast up his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, 
always provoked a fresh volley from his wife, so that he was 
fain to draw off his forces, and take to the outside of the house 
— the only side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked 
husband. 

Eip^s sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was 
as much henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle re- 
garded them as companions in idleness, and even looked 
upon Wolf with an evil eye as the cause of his master's going 
so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit befitting an 
honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever 
scoured the woods — but what courage can withstand the ever- 
during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The 
moment Wolf entered the house, his crest fell, his tail drooped 
to the ground, or curled between his legs, he -sneaked about 
with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong glance at Dame 
Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or ladle, 
he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation. 

Times grew worse and worse with Eip Van Winkle, as years 
of matrimony rolled on: a tart temper never mellows with 
age, and a sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows 
keener from constant use. For a long while he used to con- 
sole himself, when driven from home, by frequenting a kind 
of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and other idle 
personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench 
before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of his 
majesty George III. Here they used to sit in the shade, 
of a long, lazy summer's day, talking listlessly over 
village gossip, or telling endless sleepy stories about nothing. 
But it would have been worth any statesman's money to have 
heard the profound discussions which sometimes took place, 
when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from 
some passing traveler. How solemnly they would listen to 
the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the 
schoolmaster, a dapper learned little man, who was not to 
be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary; and 
how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some 
months after they had taken place. 

The opinions of this junta were completely controlled by 
!N"icholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord 
of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morn- 
ing till night, just moving sufficiently to avoid the sun^ and 



34 THE SKETCHBOOK. 

keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the neighbors could 
tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a sun- 
dial. It is ti-ue, he was rarely heard to speak^ but smoked his 
pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great 
man has his adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew 
how to gather his opinions. When anything that was read or 
related displeased him, he was observed to smoke his pipe 
vehemently, and to send forth short, frequent, and angry 
puffs; but when pleased he would inhale the smoke slowly 
and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds, and 
sometimes taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the 
fragrant vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his 
head in token of perfect approbation. 

From even this stronghold the unlucky Eip was at length 
routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in 
upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call the members 
all to nought; nor was that august personage, Mcholas Ved- 
der himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible 
virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her hus- 
band in habits of idleness. 

Poor Eip was at last reduced almost to despair, and his 
only alternative to escape from the labor of the farm and the 
clamor of his wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away 
into the woods. Here he would sometimes seat himself at the 
foot of a tree and share the contents of his wallet with Wolf, 
with whom he sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecu- 
tion. " Poor Wolf," he would say; " thy mistress leads thee 
a dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad; whilst I live thou 
shalt never want a friend to stand by thee! " Wolf would 
wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and if dogs 
can feel pity, I verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment 
with all his heart. 

In a long ramble of the kind, on a fine autumnal day, Eip 
had unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of 
the Kaatskill Mountains. He was after his favorite sport of 
squirrel-shooting, and the still solitudes had echoed and re^ 
echoed with the reports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, 
he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll 
covered with mountain herbage that crowned the brow of the 
precipice. From an opening between the trees he could over- 
look all the lower country for many a mile of rich wood- 
land. He saw at a distance the lordly Hudson, far, far below 
liim_, moving on its silent but majestic course, with the reflee- 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 35 

tion of a purple cloud or the sail of a lagging bark here and 
there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in 
the blue highlands. 

On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain 
glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with frag- 
ments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely lighted from 
the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some time Eip lay 
musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the 
mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the 
valleys; he saw that it would be dark long before he could 
reach the village; and he heaved a heavy sigh when he 
thought of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. 

As he was about to descend he heard a voice from a dis- 
tance hallooing, " Eip Van Winkle! Eip Van Winkle! " He 
looked around, but could see nothing but a crow winging its 
solitary flight across the mountain. He thought his fancy 
must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when 
he heard the same cry ring through the still evening air, 
^^Eip Yan Winkle! Eip Yan Winkle! " At the same time 
Wolf bristled up his back, and, giving a low growl, skulked 
to his master's side, looking fearfully down into the glen. 
Eip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he 
looked anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a 
strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks, and bending under 
the weight of something he carried on his back. He was 
surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfre- 
quented place, but supposing it to be someone of the 
neighborhood in need of assistance, he hastened down to 
yield it. 

On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singu- 
larity of the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square- 
built old fellow, with thick bushy hair and a grizzled beard. 
His dress was of the antique Dutch fashion — a cloth Jerkin 
strapped round the waist, several pair of breeches, the outer 
one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons down 
the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoul- 
ders a stout keg that seemed full of liquor, and made signs 
for Eip to approach and assist him with the load. Though 
rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Eip 
complied with his usual alacrity, and, mutually relieving each 
other, they clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry 
bed of a mountain torrent. As they ascended, Eip every now 
and then heard long rolling peals like distant thunder, that 



36 THE SKETCH-BOOK, 

seemed to issue out of a deep ravine or rather cleft between 
lofty rocks^ toward wMch their rugged path conducted. He 
paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering 
of one of those transient thunder-showers which often take 
place in mountain heights, be proceeded. Passing through 
the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheater, 
surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks of 
which impending trees shot their branches, so that you only 
caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening 
cloud. During the whole time Rip and his companion had 
labored on in silence; for, though the former marveled 
greatly what could be the object of carrying a keg of liquor 
up this wild mountain, yet there was something strange and 
incomprehensible about the unknown that inspired awe and 
checked familiarity. 

On entering the amphitheater, new objects of wonder pre- 
sented themselves. On a level spot in the center was a com- 
pany of odd-looking personages playing at nine-pins. They 
were dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion; some wore short 
doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their belts, and 
most of them had enormous breeches of similar style with that 
of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar. One had a 
large head, broad face, and small, piggish eyes; the face of 
another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was sur- 
mounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a little red 
cock's tail. They all had beards of various shapes and colors. 
There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was 
a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; 
he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned 
hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes with 
roses in them. The whole group reminded Eip of the figures 
in an old Flemish painting in the parlor of Dominie Van 
Schaick, the village parson, and which had been brought 
over from Holland at the time of the settlement. 

What seemed particularly odd to Rip was that, though 
these folks were evidently amusing themselves, yet they 
maintained the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence, 
and were, withal, the most melancholy party of pleasure he 
had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the 
scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were 
rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of 
thunder. 

As Rip and his companion approached them, they sud- 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 37 

denly desisted from their play, and stared at him with such 
a fixed statue-like gaze, and such strange, uncouth, lack- 
luster countenances, that his heart turned within him and 
his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the 
contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him 
to wait upon the company. He oheyed with fear and trem- 
bling; they quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then 
returned ^o their game. 

By degrees Eip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even 
ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the bev- 
erage, which he found had much of the flavor of excellent 
Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty soul, and was soon 
tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked auother, 
and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often that at 
length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in liis 
head, his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep 
sleep. 

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll from 
whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. He rubbed 
his eyes — it was a bright sunny morning. The birds were 
hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the eagle was 
wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze. 
^^ Surely," thought Eip, " I have not slept here all night." 
He recalled the occurrences before he fell asleep. The 
strange man with the keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — 
the wild retreat among the rocks — the woe-begone party at 
nine-pins — the flagon. " Oh, that wicked flagon! " thought 
Eip. " What excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle? " 

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, 
well-oiled fowling piece he found an old firelock lying beside 
him, the barrel encrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and 
the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave 
roysterers of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, 
having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. 
Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away 
after a squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and 
shouted his name, but all in vain; the echoes repeated his 
whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. 

He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's 
gambol, and if he met with any of the pa.rty to demand his 
dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he found himself stiff in 
the joints and wanting in his usual activity. " These moun- 
tain beds do not agree with me," thought Eip, " and if this 



38 THE 8KETCE-B00K. 

frolic should lay me up with a fit of rheumatism, I shall have 
a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some diffi- 
culty he got down into the glen. He found the gully up 
which he and his companion had ascended the preceding 
evening; but tO' his astonishment a mountain stream was 
now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling 
the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift 
to scramble up its sides, working his toilsome way through 
thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes 
tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that twisted 
their coils and tendrils from tree to tree, and spread a kind 
of network in his path. 

At length he reached to where the ravine had opened 
through the cliffs to the amphitheater; but no traces of such 
opening remained. The rocks presented a high, impenetrable 
wall, over which the torrent came tumbhng in a sheet of 
feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin, black from 
the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Eip 
was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after 
his dog; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock of 
idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree that over- 
hung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in their elevation, 
seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's perplexities. 
What was to be done? The morning was passing away, and 
Eip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to 
give up his dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but 
it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook 
his head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and with a heart full 
of trouble and anxiety turned his steps homeward. 

As he approached the village he met a number of people> 
but none whom he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for 
he had thought himself acquainted with everyone in the 
country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion 
from that to which he was accustomed. They all stared at 
him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast 
eyes upon him invariably stroked their chins. The constant 
recurrence of this gesture induced Eip involuntarily to do 
the same, when to his astonishment he found his beard had 
grown a foot long. 

He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of 
strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and 
pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which 
he recognized for an old acquaintance^, barked at him as he 



BIP VAN WINKLE. 39 

passed. The very village was altered; it was larger and 
more populous. There were rows of houses which he had 
never seen before, and those which had been his familiar 
haunts had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors 
— strange faces at the windows — everything was strange. His 
mind now misgave him; he began to doubt whether both he 
and the world around him were not bewitched. Surely this 
was his native village, which he had left but a day before. 
There stood the Kaatskill Mountains — there ran the silver 
Hudson at a distance — ^there was every hill and dale precisely 
as it had always been. Eip was sorely perplexed. "That 
flagon last night/' thought he, "has addled my poor head 
sadly! '' 

It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his 
own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting 
every moment to hear the shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. 
He found the house gone to decay — the roof fallen in, the 
windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A half - 
starved dog, that looked like Wolf, was skulking about it. 
Eip called him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his 
teeth, and passed on. This was an unkind cut, indeed. " My 
very dog," sighed poor Eip, " has forgotten me! '' 

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth. Dame Van 
Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was empty, for- 
lorn, and apparently abandoned. This desolateness overcame 
all his connubial fears. He called loudly for his wife and 
children. The lonely chambers rang for a moment with his 
voice, and then all again was silence. 

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the 
village inn; but it, too, was gone. A large rickety wooden 
building stood in its place, with great gaping windows, some 
of them broken, and mended with old hats and petticoats, and 
over the door was painted, " The Union Hotel, by Jonathan 
Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the 
quiet little Dutch imi of yore, there now was reared a tall, 
naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red 
night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a 
singular assemblage of stars and stripes — all this was strange 
and incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, 
the ruby face of King George, under which he had smoked 
so many a peaceful pipe, but even this was singularly 
metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue 
and buff^ a sword was held in the hand instead of a scepter;, 



40 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

the head was decorated with a cocked hat, and uiidemeatli 
was painted, in large characters. General Washington. 

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but 
none that Eip recollected. The very character of the people 
seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious 
tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy 
tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Ved- 
der, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, 
uttering clouds of tobacco smoke instead of idle speeches; 
or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents 
of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean., bilious- 
looking fellow, with his pockets full of handbills, was har- 
anguing vehemently about rights of citizens — election — ■ 
members of Congress — liberty — Bunker's Hill — heroes of 
seventy-six — and other words that were a perfect Babylonish 
Jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. 

The appearance of Eip, with his long, grizzled beard, his 
rusty fowling piece, his uncouth dress, and the army of 
women and children that had gathered at his heels, soon 
attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They 
crowded round him, eying him from head to foot with great 
curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and drawing him 
partly aside, inquired " on which side he voted? " Eip stared 
in vacant stupidity. Another short, but busy, fellow pulled 
him by the arm, and rising on tiptoe inquired in his ear 
" whether he was Federal or Democrat.'' Eip was equally at 
a loss to comprehend the question, when a knowing, self-im- 
portant old gentleman in a sharp cocked hat made his way 
through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with 
his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van 
Winkle, with one arm aldmbo, the other resting on his cane, 
his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his 
very soul, demanded in an austere tone " what brought him 
to the election with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his 
heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village? " 

"Alas! gentlemen," cried Eip, somewhat dismayed, "I 
am. a poor, quiet man, a native of the place, and a loyal sub- 
ject of the king — God bless him! " 

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders: " A Tory! 
a Tory! a spy! a refugee! Hustle him! away with him!" 

It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in 
the cocked hat restored order; and having assumed a tenfold 
austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 41 

what lie came there for^ and whom he was seeking. The 
poor man hiimblj assured him that he meant no harm, but 
merely came there in search of some of his neighbors, who 
used to keep about the tavern. 

"Well, who axe they? Name them." 

Eip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, ^^ "Where's 
JSTicholas Vedder ? " 

There was a silence for a little while, when an old man 
inquired in a thin, piping voice: "Mcholas Yedder? Why, 
he is dead and gone these eighteen years! There was a 
wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all 
about him, but that's rotten and gone too.'' 

'' Where's Brom Dutcher? " 

'^ Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; 
some say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point, others 
say he was drowned in the squall at the foot of Anthony's 
Nose. I don't know — he never came back again." 

" Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster? " 

'' He went off to the wars, too; was a great militia general, 
and is now in Congress." 

Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in 
his home and friends, and finding liimself thus alone in the 
world. Every answer puzzled him, too, by treating of such 
enormous lapses of time, and of matters which he could not 
understand. War — Congress — Stony Point! He had no 
courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in de- 
spair: " Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle? " 

" Oh, Rip Van Winkle! " exclaimed two or three. '^ Oh, to 
be sure! That's Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the 
tree." 

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself as 
he went up the mountain; apparently as lazy and certainly 
as ragged. The poor fellow was now completely confounded. 
He doubted his own identity, and whether he was himself or 
another man. In the midst of his bewilderment the man in 
the cocked hat demanded who he was and what was his 
name. 

" God knows! " exclaimed he, at his wit's end; " I'm not 
myself — I'm somebody else; that's me yonder — no, that's 
somebody else got into my shoes. I was myself last night, 
but I fell asleep on the mountain — and they've changed my 
gun — and everything's changed — and I'm changed — and I 
can't tell what's my name, or who I am! " 



42 THE SKETCH-BOOK, 

The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink 
significantly, and tap their fingers against their foreheads. 
There was a whisper, also, about securing the gun and keep- 
ing the old fellow from doing mischief; at the very sugges- 
tion of which the self-important man with the cocked hat 
retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a 
fresh, comely woman passed through the throng to get a peep 
at the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her 
arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. " Hush, 
Eip," cried she; " hush, you little fool; the old man won't 
hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the mother, 
the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in 
Ms mind. 

" What is your name, my good woman? " asked he. 

^' Judith Gardenier." 

" And your father's name ? " 

'^ Ah, the poor man! his name was Eip Van Winkle; it's 
twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, 
and never has been heard of since; his dog came home with- 
out him. But whether he shot himself or was carried away 
by the Indians nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl." 

Eip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with 
a faltering voice: 

" Where's your mother ? " 

" Oh, she, too, had died but a short time since; she broke 
a blood vessel in a fit of passion at a New England peddler." 

There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. 
The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught 
his daughter and her child in his arms. " I am your father! " 
cried he. " Young Eip Van Winkle once — old Eip Van 
Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Eip Van Winkle? " 

All stood amazed, until an old woman, tottering out from 
among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and peering 
under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed: " Sure 
enough! It is Eip Van Winkle — ^it is himself. Welcome 
home again, old neighbor. Why, where have you been these 
twenty long years? " 

Eip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had 
been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when 
they heard it; some were seen to wink at each other, and 
put their tongues in their cheeks; and the self-important man 
in the cocked hat, who, when the alarm was over, had re- 
turned to the field^ screwed down the comers of his mouth 



RIP TAN WINKLE. 43 

and shook his head^ upon which there was a general shaking 
of the head throughout the assemblage. 

It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old 
Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the 
road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name, 
who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter 
was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed 
in all +he wonderful events and traditions of the neighbor- 
hood. He recollected Eip at once, and corroborated his story 
in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company 
that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor, the his- 
torian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been 
haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the 
great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and 
country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years with 
his crew of the Half-Moon, being permitted in this way to 
revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye 
upon the river and the great city called by his name. That 
his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses 
playing at nine-pins in a hollow of the mountain; and that 
be himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of 
their balls, like distant peals of thunder. 

To make a long story short, the company broke up, and 
returned to the more important concerns of the election. 
Eip^s daughter took him home to live with her; she had a 
snug, well-furnished house and a stout, cheery farmer for a 
husband, whom Eip recollected for one of the urchins that 
used to climb upon his back. As to Eip's son and heir, who 
was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was 
employed to work on the farm; but evinced a hereditary dis- 
position to work at anything else but his business. 

Eip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found 
many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for 
the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends 
among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into 
great favor. 

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that 
happy age when a man can do nothing with impunity, he 
took his place once more on the bench at the inn door, and 
was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village and a 
chronicle of the old times "before the war." It was some 
time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or 
could be made to comprehend the strange events that had 



44 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

taken place during his torpor — how that there had been a 
revolutionary war; that the country had thrown off the yoke 
of old England; and that, instead of being a subject of his 
majesty George III., he was now a free citizen of the United 
States. Eip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states 
and empires made but little impression on him; but there 
was one species of despotism under which he had long 
groaned, and that was — petticoat government. Happily, that 
was at an end; he had got his neck out of the yoke of matri- 
mony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without 
dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. Whenever her 
name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged 
his shoulders, and cast up his eyes; which might pass either 
for an expression of resignation to his fate or joy at his 
deliverance. 

He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at 
Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on 
some points every time he told it, which was doubtless owing 
to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled down 
precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or 
child in the neighborhood but knew it by heart. Some always 
pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Eip had 
been out of his head, and that this was one point on which 
he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, how- 
ever, almo&t universally gave it full credit. Even to this day, 
they never hear a thunderstorm of a summer afternoon about 
the Kaatskill but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew 
are at their game of nine-pins; and it is a common wish of 
all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs 
heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting 
draught out of Eip Van Winkle's flagon. 

Note. — The foregoing tale, one would suspect, had been suggested 
to Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the Em- 
peror Frederick der Rothhart and the Kypphauser mountain: the sub- 
joined note, however, which he had appended to the tale, shows that it 
is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual fidelity. 

" The story of Rip Yan Winkle may seem incredible to many, but 
nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity of our old 
Dutch settlements to have been very subject to marvelous events and 
appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories than this, in 
the villages along the Hudson, all of which were too well authenticated 
to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, 
who, when last I saw him, was a very venerable old man, and so per- 
fectly rational and consistent on every other point that I think no con- 
scientious person could refuse to take this into the bargain; nay, I have 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA, 45 

seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice, and 
signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The story, there- 
fore, is beyond the possibility of doubt." 



ENGLISH WEITERS ON AMERICA. 

Methinks I see in my mind a noble puissant nation, rousing herself 
like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks 
I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her endaz- 
zled eyes at the full mid-day beam. — Milton on the Liberty of the Press. 

It is with feelings of deep regret that I observe the literary 
animosity daily growing np between England and America. 
Great curiosity has been awakened of late with respect to the 
United States^ and the London press has teemed with volumes 
of travels through tho. republic; but they seem intended to 
diffuse error rather than knowledge; and so successful have 
they been, that notwithstanding the constant intercourse be- 
tween the nations^, there is no people concerning whom the 
great mass of the British public have less pure information, 
or entertain more numerous prejudices. 

English travelers are the best and the worst in the world. 
"Where no motives of pride or interest intervene, none can 
equal them for profound and philosophical views of society, 
or faithful and graphical descriptions of external objects; 
but when either the interest or reputation of their own coun- 
try comes in collision with that of another, they go to the 
opposite extreme, and forget their usual probity and candor 
in the indulgence of splenetic remark and an illiberal spirit 
of ridicule. 

Hence, their travels are more honest and accurate the more 
remote the country described. I would place implicit confi- 
dence in an Englishm:n's description of the regions beyond 
the cataracts of the Mle; of unknown islands in the Yellow 
Sea; pf the interior of India; or of any other tract which 
other travelers might be apt to picture out with illusions 
of their fancies. But I would cautiously receive his account 
of his immediate neighbors, and of those nations with which 
he is in habits of most frequent intercourse. However I 
might be disposed to trust his probity, I dare not trust his 
prejudices. 

It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to be visited 
by the worst kind of English travelers. While men of philo- 



46 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

sophical spirit and cultivated minds have been sent from Eng- 
land to ransack the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to 
study the manners and customs of barbarous nations, with 
which she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or 
pleasure; it has been left to the broken-down tradesman, the 
scheming adventurer, the wandering mechanic, the Man- 
chester and Birmingham agent, to be her oracles respecting 
America. From such sources she is content to receive her 
information respecting a country in a singular state of moral 
and physical development; a country in which one of the 
greatest political experiments in the history of the world is 
now performing, and which presents the most profound and 
momentous studies to the statesman and philosopher. 

That such men should give prejudiced accounts of America 
is not a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for con- 
templation are too vast and elevated for their capacities. The 
national character is yet in a state of fermentation: it may 
have its frothiness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound 
and wholesome: it has already given proofs of powerful and 
generous qualities; and the whole promises to settle down 
into something substantially excellent. But the causes which 
are operating to strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily indi- 
cations of admirable properties, are all lost upon these pur- 
blind observers; who are only affected by the little asperities 
incident to its present situation. They are capable of judg- 
ing only of the surface of things; of those matters which come 
in contact with their private interests and personal gratifica- 
tions. They miss some of the snug conveniences and petty 
comforts which belong to an old, highly finished, and over- 
populous state of society; where the ranks of useful labor are 
crowded, and may earn a painful and servile subsistence, by 
studying the very caprices of appetite and self-indulgence. 
These minor comforts, however, are all-important in the esti- 
mation of narrow minds; which either do not perceive, or 
will not acknowledge, that they are more than counterbal- 
anced among us, by great and generally diffused blessings. 

They may, perhaps, have been disappointed in some un- 
reasonable expectation of sudden gain. They may have 
pictured America to themselves an El Dorado, where gold 
and silver abounded, and the natives were lacking in 
sagacity; and where they were to become strangely and sud- 
denly rich, in some unforseen but easy manner. The same 
weakness of mind that indulges absurd expectations, produces 



ENOLISH WRITERS ON AMEBIGA. 47 

petulance in disappointment. Such persons become embit- 
tered against the country on finding that there, as everywherQ 
else, a man must sow before he can reap; must win wealth by 
industry and talent; and must contend with the common 
difiiculties of nature, and the shrewdness of an intelligent 
and enterprising people. 

Perhaps, through mistaken, or ill-directed hospitality, or 
from the prompt disposition to cheer and countenance the 
stranger, prevalent among my countrymen, they may have 
been treated with unwonted respect in America; and, having 
been accustomed all their lives to consider themselves below 
the surface of good society, and brought up in a servile feel- 
ing of inferiority, they become arrogant on the common boon 
of civility; they attribute to the lowliness of others their own 
elevation; and underrate a society where there are no arti- 
ficial distinctions, and where by any chance such individuals 
as themselves can rise to consequence. 

One would suppose, however, that information coming 
from such sources, on a subject where the truth is so desirable, 
would be received with caution by the censors of the press; 
that the motives of these men, their veracity, their oppor- 
tunities of inquiry and observation, and their capacities for 
judging correctly, would be rigorously scrutinized, before 
their evidence was admitted, in such sweeping extent against 
a kindred nation. The very reverse, however, is the case, and 
it furnishes a striking instance of human inconsistency. 
!N'othing can surpass the vigilance with which English critics 
will examine the credibility of the traveler whO' publishes an 
account of some distant, and comparatively unimportant, 
country. How warily will they compare the measurements 
of a p3rramid, or the description of a ruin; and how sternly 
will they censure any inaccuracy in these contributions of 
merely curious knowledge; while they will receive, with eager- 
ness and unhesitating faith, the gross misrepresentations of 
coarse and obscure writers, concerning a country with which 
their own is placed in the most important and delicate rela- 
tions. ISTay, they will even make these apocryphal volumes 
text-books, on which to enlarge, with a zeal and an ability 
worthy of a more generous cause. 

I shall not, however, dwell on this irksome and hackneyed 
topic; nor should I have averted to it, but for the undue in- 
terest apparently taken in it by my countrymen, and certain 
injurious effects which I apprehend it might produce upon 



48 THE 8KETGH-B00K. 

the national feeling. We attach, too mnch consequence to 
these attacks. They cannot do us any essential injury. The 
tissue of misrepresentations attempted to be woven round us, 
are like cobwebs woven round the limbs of an infant giant. 
Our country continually outgrows them. One falsehood 
after another falls off of itself. We have but to live on, and 
every day we live a whole volume of refutation. All the 
writers of England united, if we could for a moment suppose 
their great minds stooping to so unworthy a combination, 
could not conceal our rapidly growing importance and match- 
less prosperity. They could not conceal that these are owing, 
not merely to physical and local, but also to moral causes; — ■ 
to the political liberty, the general diffusion of knowledge, 
the prevalence of sound, moral, and religious principles, 
which give force and sustained energy to the character of a 
people; and which, in fact, have been the acknowledged and 
wonderful supporters of their own national disgrace, power, 
and glory. 

But why are we so exquisitely alive to the asperations of 
England? Why do we suffer ourselves to be so affected by 
the contumely she has endeavored to cast upon us? It is 
not- in the opinion of England alone that honor lives, and 
reputation has its being. The world at large is the arbiter of 
a nation's fame: with its thousand eyes it witnesses a nation's 
deeds, and from their collective testimony is national glory 
or national disgrace established. 

For ourselves, therefore, it is comparatively of but little 
importance whether England does us justice or not; it is, 
perhaps, of far more importance to herself. She is instilling 
anger and resentment into the bosom of a youthful nation, 
to grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. 
If in America, as some of her writers are laboring to convince 
her, she is hereafter to find an invidious rival and a gigantic 
foe, she may thank those very writers for having provoked 
rivalship, and irritated hostility. Evaryone knows the all- 
pervading influence of literature at the present day, and how 
much the opinions and passions of mankind are under its 
control. The mere contests of the sword are temporary; their 
wounds are but in the flesh, and it is the pride of the generous 
to forgive and forget them ; but the slanders of the pen pierce 
to the heart; they rankle longest in the noblest spirits; they 
dwell ever present in the mind, and render it morbidly sensi- 
tive to the most trifling collision. It is but seldom that anj 



ENGLISH WEITERS ON AMERICA. 49 

one overt act produces hostilities between two nations; there 
exists, most commonly, a previous jealousy and ill-will, a pre- 
disposition to take offense. Trace these to their cause, and 
how often will they be found to originate in the mischievous 
effusions of mercenary writers; who, secure in their closets, 
and for ignominious bread, concoct and circulate the venom 
that is to inflame the generous and the brave. 

I am not laying too much stress upon this point; for it 
applies most emphatically to our particular case. Over no 
nation does the press hold a more absolute control than over 
the people of America; for the universal education of the 
poorest classes makes every individual a reader. There is 
nothing published in England on the subject of our country, 
that does not circulate through every part of it. There is 
not a calumny dropped from an English pen, nor an unworthy 
sarcasm uttered by an English statesman, that does not go to 
bhght good will, and add to the mass of latent resent- 
ment. Possessing, then, as England does, the fountain-head 
from whence the literature of the language flows, how com- 
pletely is it in her power, and how truly is it her duty, to 
make it the medium of amiable and magnanimous feeling — a 
stream where two nations meet together, and drink in peace 
and kindness. Should she, however, persist in turning it to 
waters of bitterness, the time may come when she may repent 
her folly. The present friendship of America may be of but 
little moment to her; but the future destinies of that country 
do not admit of a doubt; over those of England, there lower 
some shadows of uncertainty. Should, then, a day of gloom 
arrive — should these reverses overtake her from which the 
proudest empires have not been exempt — she may look back 
with regret at her infatuation, in repulsing from her side a 
nation she might have grappled to her bosom, and thus de- 
stro3ring her only chance for real friendship beyond the 
boundaries of her own dominions. 

There is a general impression in England, that the people 
of the United States are inimical to the parent country. It 
is one of the errors which has been diligently propagated by 
designing writers. There is, doubtless, considerable political 
hostility, and a general soreness at the illiberality of the Eng- 
lish press; but, collectively speaking, the prepossessions of the 
people are strongly in favor of England. Indeed, at one time 
they amounted, in many parts of the Union, to an absurd 
degree of bigotry. The bare name of Englishman was a pass- 



50 THE SKETOE-BOOK. 

port to the eonfidence and hospitality of every family, and too 
often gave a transient cnrrency to the worthless and the un- 
grateful. Throughout the country, there was something of 
enthusiasm connected with the idea of England. We looked 
to it with a hallowed feeling of tenderness and veneration, 
as the land of our forefathers — the august repository of the 
monuments and antiquities of our race^ — the birthplace and 
mausoleum of the sages and heroes of our paternal history. 
After our own country, there was none in whose glory we 
more delighted — none whose good opinion we were more anx- 
ious to possess — none toward which our hearts yearned with 
such throbbings of warm consanguinity. Even during the 
late war, whenever there was the least opportunity for kind 
feelings to spring forth, it was the delight of the generous 
spirits of our country to show, that in the midst of hostilities, 
they still kept alive the sparks of future friendship. 

Is all this to be at an end? Is this golden band of kindred 
sympathies, so rare between nations, to be broken forever? 
Perhaps it is for the best — it may dispel an illusion which 
might have kept us in mental vassalage; which might have 
interfered occasionally with our true interests, and prevented 
the growth of proper national pride. But it is hard, to give up 
the kindred tie!— and there are feelings dearer than interest — 
closer to the heart than pride' — that will still make us cast 
back a look of regret as we wander farther and farther from 
the paternal roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent 
that would repel the affections of the child. 

Shortsighted and injudicious, however, as the conduct of 
England may be in this system of aspersion, recrimination on 
our part would be equally ill-judged. I speak not of a 
prompt and spirited vindication of our country, or the keen- 
est castigation of her slanderers^ — ^but I allude to a disposition 
to retaliate in kind, to retort sarcasm and inspire prejudice, 
which seems to be spreading widely among our writers. Let 
us guard particularly against such a temper; for it would 
double the evil, instead of redressing the wrong. Nothing is 
so easy and inviting as the retort of abuse and sarcasm; but it 
is a paltry and unprofitable contest. It is the alternative of 
a morbid mind, fretted into petulance, rather than warmed 
into indignation. If England is willing to permit the mean 
jealousies of trade, or the rancorous animosities of politics, to 
deprave the integrity of her press, and poison the fountain of 
public opinion, let us beware of her example. She may deem 



ENGLISH WRITERS ON AMERICA. 51 

it her interest to diffuse error, and engender antipathy, for 
the purpose of checking emigration; we have no purposje of 
the kind to serve. Neither have we any spirit of national 
jealousy to gratify; for as yet, in all our rivalships with Eng- 
land, we are the rising and the gaining party. There can be 
no end to answer, therefore, but the gratification of resent- 
ment — a mere spirit of retaliation; and even that is impotent. 
Our retorts are never republished in England: they fall short, 
therefore, of their aim; but they foster a querulous and peev- 
ish temper among our writers; they sour the sweet flow of our 
early literature, and sow thorns and brambles among its blos- 
soms. What is still worse, they circulate through our own 
country, and, as far as they have effect, excite virulent 
national prejudices. This last is the evil most especially to 
be deprecated. Governed, as we are, entirely by public 
opinion, the utmost care should be taken to preserve the 
purity of the public mind. Knowledge is power, and truth 
is knowledge; whoever, therefore, knowingly propagates a 
prejudice, willfully saps the foundation of his country's 
strength. 

The members of a republic, above all other men, should 
be candid and dispassionate. They are, individually, por- 
tions of the sovereign mind and sovereign will, and should 
be enabled to come to all questions of national concern with 
calm and unbiased judgments. From the peculiar nature of 
our relations with England, we must have more frequent 
questions of a difficult and delicate character with her, than 
with any other nation; questions that affect the most acute 
and excitable feelings; and as, in the adjusting of these, our 
national measures must ultimately be determined by popular 
sentiment, we cannot be too anxiously attentive to purify it 
from all latent passion or prepossession. 

Opening too, as we do, an asylum for strangers from every 
portion of the earth, we should receive all with impartiality. 
It should be our pride to exhibit an example of one nation, 
at least, destitute of national antipathies, and exercising, not 
merely the overt acts of hospitality, but those more rare and 
noble courtesies which spring from liberality of opinion. 

What have we to do with national prejudices? They are 
the inveterate diseases of old countries, contracted in rude 
and ignorant ages, when nations knew but little of each other, 
and looked beyond their own boundaries with distrust and 
hostility. We, on the contrary, have sprung into national 



52 THE 8KETGE-B00K. 

existence in an enlightened and philosophic age, when the 
different parts of the habitable world, and the various 
branches of the human family, have been indefatigably 
studied and made known to each other; and we forego the 
advantages of our birth, if we do not shake off the national 
prejudices, as we would the local superstitions, of the old 
world. 

But above all, let us not be influenced by any angry feel- 
ings, so far as to shut our eyes to the perception of what is 
really excellent and amiable in the English character. We 
are a young people, necessarily an imitative one, and must 
take our examples and models, in a great degree, from the ex- 
isting nations of Europe. There is no country more worthy 
of our study than England. The spirit of her constitution is 
most analogous to ours. The manners of her people — their 
intellectual activity — their freedom of opinion — their habits 
of thinking on those subjects which concern the dearest 
interests and most sacred charities of private life, are all con- 
genial to the American character; and, in fact, are all intrin- 
sically excellent; for it is in the moral feeling of the people 
that the deep foundations of British prosperity axe laid; and 
however the superstructure may be time-worn, or overrun by 
abuses, there must be something solid in the basis, admirable 
in the materials, and stable in the structure of an edifice that 
so long has towered unshaken amidst the tempests of the 
world. 

Let it be the pride of our writers, therefore, discarding all 
feelings of irritation, and disdaining to re^taliate the illiber- 
ality of British authors, to speak of the English nation with- 
out prejudice, and with determined candor. While they 
rebuke the indiscriminating bigotry with which some of our 
countrymen admire and imitate everything English, merely 
because it is English, let them frankly point out what is really 
worthy of approbation. We may thus place England before 
us as a perpetual volume of reference, wherein are recorded 
sound deductions from ages of experience; and while we avoid 
the errors and absurdities which may have crept into the 
page, we may draw thence golden maxims of practical wisdom, 
wherewith to strengthen and to embellish our national 
character. 



MUBAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 5^ 



EUEAL LIFE IN EE^GLAND. 

Oh! friendly to tlie best pursuits of man, 
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace. 
Domestic life in rural pleasures past ! 

— COWPER. 

The stranger wlio would form a correct opinion of the 
English character, must not confine his observations to the 
metropolis. He must go forth into the country; he must 
sojourn in villages and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, 
farmhouses, cottages; he must wander through parks and 
gardens; along hedges and green lanes; he must loiter about 
country churches; attend wakes and fairs, and other rural 
festivals; and cope with the people in all their conditions, and 
all their habits and humors. 

In some countries the large cities absorb the wealth and 
fashion of the nation; they are the only fixed abodes of ele- 
gant and intelligent society, and the country is inhabited 
almost entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the 
contrary, the metropolis is the mere gathering place, or 
general rendezvous of the pohte classes, where they devote a 
small portion of the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, 
and having indulged this kind of carnival, return again to 
the apparently more congenial habits of rural life. The vari- 
ous orders of society are therefore diffused ever the whole sur- 
face of the kingdom, and the most retired neighborhoods 
afford specimens of the different ranks. 

The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feel- 
ing. They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of 
nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures and employments 
of the country. This passion seems inherent in them. Even 
the inhabitants of cities, born and brought up among brick 
walls and bustling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, 
and evince a tact for rural occupation. The merchant has 
his snug retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he 
often displays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of 
his flower garden, and the maturing of his fruits, as he does 
in the conduct of his business, and the success of a com- 
mercial enterprise. Even those less fortunate individuals, 
who are doomed to pass their lives in the midst of din and 
traffic, contrive to have something that shall remind them of 
the green aspect of nature. In the most dark and dingy 



64 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

quarters of the city, tlie drawing-room window resembles fre- 
quently a bank of flowers; every spot capable of vegetation has 
its grass plot and flower bed; and every square its mimic park, 
laid out with picturesque taste, and gleaming with refreshing 
verdure. 

Those who see the Englishman only in town, are apt to 
form an unfavorable opinion of his social character. He is 
either absorbed in business, or distracted by the thousand 
engagements that dissipate time, thought, and feeling, in this 
huge metropolis. He has, therefore, too commonly, a look of 
hurry and abstraction. Wherever he happens to be, he is on 
the point of going somewhere else; at the moment he is talk- 
ing on one subject, his mind is wandering to another; and 
while paying a friendly visit, he is calculating how he shall 
economize time so as to pay the other visits allotted to the 
morning. An immense metropolis, like London, is calculated 
to make men selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and 
transient meetings, they can but deal briefly in common- 
places. They present but the cold superficies of character — ■ 
its rich and genial qualities have no time to be warmed into a 
flow. 

It is in the country that the Englishman gives scope to his 
natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold for- 
malities and negative civilities of town, throws off his habits 
of shy reserve, and becomes joyous and free-hearted. He 
manages to collect round him all the. conveniences and elegan- 
cies of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country- 
seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retire- 
ment, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paint- 
ings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of all 
kinds are at hand. He puts no constraint, either upon his 
guests or himself, but, in the true spirit of hospitality, pro- 
vides the means of enjoyment, and leaves everyone to par- 
take according to his inclination. 

The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in 
what is called landscape gardening, is unrivaled. They have 
studied Nature intently, and discovered an exquisite sense 
of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those 
charms which, in other countries, she lavishes in wild solitude, 
are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They 
seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread 
them, like witchery, about their rural abodes. 



BUBAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 65 

N'othing can be more imposing than the magnificence of 
English park scenery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of 
vivid green, and here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heap- 
ing np rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves and 
woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across 
them; the hare bounding away to the covert; or the pheasant, 
suddenly bursting upon the wing. The brook, taught to 
wind in natural meanderings, or expand into a glassy lake — 
the sequestered pool, reflecting the quivering trees, with the 
yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, and the trout roaming fear- 
lessly about its limpid waters: while some rustic temple, or 
sylvan statue, grown green and dank with age, gives an air 
of classic sanctity to the seclusion. 

These are but a few of the features of park scenery; but 
what most delights me, is the creative talent with which the 
English decorate the unostentatious abodes of mj^^ile life. 
The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty 
portion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, be- 
comes a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye, 
he seizes at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind 
the future landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness 
under his hand; and yet the operations of art which produce 
the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and 
training of some trees; the cautious pruning of others; the 
nice distribution of flowers and plants of tender and graceful 
foliage; the introduction of a green slope of velvet turf; the 
partial opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of 
water — all these are managed with a delicate tact, a pervading 
yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings with which a 
painter finishes up a favorite picture. 

The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the 
country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural 
economy, that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, 
with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends 
to their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass plot be- 
fore the door, the little flower bed bordered with snug box, 
the woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its 
blossoms about the lattice; the pot of flowers in the window; 
the holly, providently planted about the house, to cheat winter 
of its dreariness, and to throw in a semblance of green summer 
to cheer the fireside: — all these bespeak the influence of taste, 
flowing down from high sources, and pervading the lowest 



56 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

levels of the public mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, de- 
lights to visit a cottage, it must be the; cottage of an English 
peasant. 

The fondness for rural life among the higher classes of the 
English has had a great and salutary effect upon the national 
character. I do not know a finer race of men than the Eng- 
lish gentlemen. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which 
characterizes the men of rank in most countries, they ex- 
hibit an union of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame 
and freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to attribute 
to their living so much in the open air, and pursuing so 
eagerly the invigorating recreations of the country. The 
hardy exercises produce also a healthful tone of mind and 
spirits, and a manliness and simplicity of manners, which 
even the follies and dissipations of the town cannot easily per- 
vert, and can never entirely destroy. In the country, too, the 
different orders of society seem to approach more freely, to be 
more disposed to blend and operate favorably upon each other. 
The distinctions between them do not appear to be so marked 
and impassable, as in the cities. The manner in which prop- 
erty has been distributed into small estates and farms, has 
established a regular gradation from the nobleman, through 
the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantial 
farmers, down to the laboring peasantry; and while it has 
thus banded the extremes of society together, has infused 
into each intermediate rank a spirit, of independence. This, 
it may be confessed, is not so universally the case at present 
as it was formerly; the larger estates having, in late years of 
distress, absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the coun- 
try, almost annihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. 
These, however, I believe, are but casual breaks in the general 
system I have mentioned. 

In rural occupation, there is nothing mean and debasing. 
It leads a man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and 
beauty; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, 
operated upon by the purest and most elevating of external 
influences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he 
cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore, finds 
nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders in 
rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the lower 
orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and 
is glad to waive the distinctions of rank, and to enter into the 
honest, heartfelt enjoyments of common life. Indeed^ the 



BUBAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 57 

very amusements of the country bring men more and more 
together; and the sound of hound and horn blend all feelings 
into harmony. I believe this is one great reason why the 
nobility and gentry are more popular among the inferior 
orders in England, than they are in any other country; and 
why the latter have en.dured so many excessive pressures and 
extremities, without repining more generally at the unequal 
distribution of fortune and privilege. 

To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society, may also 
be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British 
literature; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life; 
those incomparable descriptions of ITature that abound in the 
British poets — that have continued down from " the Flower 
and the Leaf " of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets 
all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The 
pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they had paid 
Nature an occasional visit, and become acquainted with her 
general charms; but the British poets have lived and reveled 
with her — they have wooed her in her most secret haunts — 
they have watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not 
tremble in the breeze^ — a leaf could not rustle to the ground 
■ — 8. diamond drop could not patter in the stream — a fragrance 
could not exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold 
its crimson tints to the morning, but it has been noticed by 
these impassioned and delicate observers, and wrought up into 
some beautiful morality. 

The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occu- 
pations, has been wonderful on the face of the country. A 
great part of the island is rather level, and would be monoto- 
nous, were it not for the charms of culture; but it is studded 
and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and em- 
broidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in 
grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home scenes 
of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farmhouse 
and moss-grown cottage is a picture; and as the roads are 
continually winding, and the view is shut in by groves and 
hedges, the eye is delighted by a continual succession of small 
landscapes of captivating loveliness. 

The great charm, however, of English scenery, is the moral 
feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind 
with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober well-established princi- 
ples of hoary usage and reverend custom. Everything 
seems to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful ex- 



68 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

istence. The old church, of remote architecture, with its low 
massive portal; its Gothic tower; its windows, rich with 
tracery and painted glass, in scrupulous preservation— its 
stately monuments of warriors and worthies of the olden 
time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil — its tomb- 
stones, recording successive generations of sturdy yeomanry, 
whose progeny still plow the same fields, and kneel at the 
same altar — the parsonage, a quaint irregular pile, partly 
antiquated, hut repaired and altered in the tastes of various 
ages and occupants — the stile and footpath leading from the 
churchyard, across pleasant fields, and along shady hedge- 
rows, according to an immemorahle right of way — the 
neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, its public 
green, sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the 
present race have sported — the antique family mansion, stand- 
ing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with 
a protecting air on the surrounding scene^ — all these' com- 
mon features of English landscape evince a calm and settled 
security, a hereditary transmission of home-bred virtues and 
local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the 
moral character of the nation. 

It is a pleasing sight, of a Sunday morning, when the bell 
is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold 
the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces, and 
modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green 
lanes to church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in 
the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appear- 
ing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments 
which their own hands have spread around them. 

It is this sweet home feeling, this settled repose of affection 
in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the 
steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments; and I cannot 
close these desultory remarks better than by quoting the 
words of a modern English poet, who has depicted it with 
remarkable felicity: 

" Through each gradation, from the castled hall, 
The city dome, the villa crown'd with shade. 
But chief from modest mansions numberless. 
In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life, 
Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roof 'd shed; 
This western isle hath long been famed for scenes 
Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling-place; 
Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove 
(Honor and sweet endearment keeping guard). 



TEE BROKEN HEART. 59 

Can center in a little quiet nest 

All that desire would fly for through the earth; 

That can, the world eluding, be itself 

A world enjoy 'd; that wants no witnesses 

But its own sharers, and approving Heaven; 

That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft, 

Smiles, though 'tis looking only at the sky." * 



THE BKOKEN HEART. 

I never heard 
Of any true affection, but 'twas nipt 
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats 
The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose. 

— MiDDLETON. 

It is a common practice with those who have outlived the 
susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in 
the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love 
stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere 
fictions of novelists and poets. My observations on human 
nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have 
convinced me, that however the surface of the character may 
be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated 
into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant 
fires lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when 
once enkindled, become impetuous, and are sometimes deso- 
lating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the 
blind deity, and go to the full extent of his doctrines. Shall 
I confess it? — I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility 
of djdng of disappointed love! I do not, however, consider it 
a malady often fatal to my own sex; but I firmly believe that 
it withers down many a lovely woman into an early grave. 

Man is the creature of interest aJid ambition. His nature 
leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. 
Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped 
in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, 
for space in the world's thought, and dominion over his 
fellow-men. But a woman's whole life is a history of the 
affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition 
strives for empire — ^it is there her avarice seeks for hidden 
treasures. She sends forth her S3niipathies on adventure; she 

* From a poem on the death of the Princess Charlotte, by the Rev. 
Rann Kennedy, A. M. 



60 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if ship- 
wrecked, her case is hopeless — for it is a bankruptcy of the 
heart. 

To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion some 
bitter pangs: it wounds some feelings of tenderness — ^it blasts 
some prospects of felicity; but he is an active being; he may 
dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, 
or may plunge into the tide of pleasure; or, if the scene of 
disappointment be too full of painful associations, he can 
shift his abode at will, and taking, as it were, the wings of 
the morning, can " fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and 
be at rest." 

But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded, and a 
meditative life. She is more the companion of her own 
thoughts and feelings; and if they are turned to ministers 
of sorrow, where shall she look for consolation? Her lot is 
to be wooed and won; and if unhappy in her love, her heart 
is like some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and 
abandoned, and left desolate. 

How many bright eyes grow dim — how many soft cheeks 
grow pale — how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, 
and none can tell the cause that blighted their loveliness! 
As the dove will clasp its wings tO' its side, and cover and 
conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals — so is it the 
nature of woman to hide from the world the pangs of 
wounded affection. The love of a delicate female is always 
shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes 
it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses 
of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the 
ruins of her peace. With her, the desire of her heart has 
failed — the great charm of existence is at an end. She 
neglects all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirit, 
quicken the pulse, and send the tide of life in healthful cur- 
rents through the veins. Her rest is broken — the sweet re- 
freshment of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams — " dry 
sorrow drinks her blood," until her enfeebled frame sinks 
under the slightest external injury. Look for her, after a 
little while, and you find friendship weeping over her un- 
timely grave, and wondering that one, who but lately glowed 
with all the radiance of health and beauty, should so speedily 
be brought down to ^^ darkness and the worm." You will 
be told of some wintry chill, some casual indisposition, that 
laid her low — but no one knows the mental malady that pre- 



THE BROKEN HEART. 61 

viously sapped her strength and made her so easy a prey to 
the spoiler. 

She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the 
grove: graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with 
the worm pre3dng at its heart. We find it suddenly wither- 
ing, when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see 
it drooping its- branches to the earth and shedding leaf by 
leaf; until, wasted and perished away, it falls even in the 
stillness of the forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, 
we strive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that 
could have smitten it with decay. 

I have seen many instances of women running to waste and 
self-neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, 
almost as if they had been exhaled to' heaven; and have re- 
peatedly fancied that I could trace their deaths through the 
various declensions of consumption, cold, debiUty, languor, 
melancholy, until I reached the first symptom of disap- 
pointed love. But an instance of the kind was lately told to 
me; the circumstances are well known in the country where 
they happened, and I shall but give them in the manner in 
which they were related. 

Everyone must recollect the tragical story of young E , 

the Irish patriot: it was too touching to be soon forgotten. 
During the troubles in Ireland he was tried, condemned, and 
executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep im- 
pression on public sympathy. He was so young — so intelli- 
gent — so generous — so brave — so everything that we are apt 
to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was 
so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he 
repelled the charge of treason against his country — the elo- 
quent vindication of his name — and his pathetic appeal to 
posterit}^, in the hopeless hour of condemnation — all these 
entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his ene- 
mies lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution. 

But there was one heart whose anguish it would be impossi- 
ble to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes he had 
won the affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the 
daughter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him 
with the disinterested fervor of a woman's first and early 
love. When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him; 
when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened 
around his name, she loved him the more ardently for his 
very sufferings. If^ then^ his fate could awaken the sym- 



62 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

pathy even of his foes, what must have been the agony to her 
whose whole sonl was occupied by his image? Let those tell 
who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between 
them and the being they most loved on earth — who have sat 
at its threshold, as one shnt out in a cold and lonely world, 
from whence all that was most lovely and loving had 
departed. 

But then the horrors of such a grave! — so frightful, so dis- 
honored! There was nothing for memory to dwell on that 
could soothe the pang of separation — none of those tender, 
though melancholy circumstances that endear the parting 
scene — ^nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears, sent, 
like the dews of heaven, to revive the heart in the parting 
hour of anguish. 

To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had 
incurred her father's displeasure by her unfortunate attach- 
ment, and was an exile from the paternal roof. But could 
the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit 
so shocked and driven in by horror, she would have experi- 
enced no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of 
quick and generous sensibilities. The most delicate and 
cherishing attentions were paid her, by families of wealth and 
distinction. She was led into society,, and they tried by all 
kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief, 
and wean her from the tragical story of her loves. But it 
was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity that 
scathe and scorch the soul — that penetrate to the vital seat 
of happiness — and blast it, never again to put forth bud or 
blossom. She never objected to frequent the haunts of 
pleasure, but she was as much alone there as in the depths of 
solitude. She walked about in a sad reverie, apparently 
unconscious of the world around her. She carried with her 
an inward woe that mocked at all the blandishments of friend- 
ship, and " heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he 
never so wisely." 

The person who told me her story had seen her at a mas- 
querade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretched- 
ness more striking and painful than to meet it in such a 
scene. To find it wandering like a specter, lonely and joyless, 
where all around is gay — to see it dressed out in the trappings 
of mirth, and looking so wan and woe-begone, as if it had 
tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into a momentary forget- 
f ulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms 



THE BROKEN HEART. 63 

and giddy ciowd with an air of utter abstraction, she sat her- 
self down on the steps of an orchestra, and looking about for 
some time with a vacant air that showed her insensibility to 
the garish scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a 
sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an 
exquisite voice; but on this occasion it was so simple, so 
touching — it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness — 
that she drew a crowd, mute and silent, around her, and 
melted everyone into tears. 

The story of one so true and tender could not but excite 
great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It 
completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his 
addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead 
could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined 
his attentions, for her thoughts were irrecoverably engrossed 
by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted 
in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. 
He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense 
of her own destitute and dependent 'situation, for she was 
existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length 
succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assur- 
ance that her heart was unalterably another^s. 

He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of 
scene might wear out tlie remembrance of early woes. She 
was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be 
a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring 
melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted 
away in a slow but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into 
the grave, the victim of a broken heart. 

It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, 
composed the following lines: 

She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, 

And lovers around her are sighing; 
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, 

For her heart in his grave is lying. 

She sings the wild song of her dear native plains. 

Every note which he loved awaking — 
Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains. 

How the heart of the minstrel is breaking! 

He had lived for his love — for his country he died, 
They were all that to life had entwined him — 

Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried, 
Kor long will his love stay behind himj 



64 TBE 8KETGH-B00K. 

Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest, 
When they promise a glorious morrow; 

They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the west. 
From her own loved island of sorrow! 



THE AET OF BOOK-MAKING. 

If that severe doom of Synesius be true — " it is a greater offense to 
steal dead men's labors than their clothes " — what shall become of most 
writers? — Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." 

I HAVE often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the 
press, and how it comes to pass that so many heads, on 
which Nature seems to have inflicted the curse of barrenness, 
yet teem with voluminous productions. As a man travels on, 
however, in the journey of life, his objects of wonder daily 
diminish, and he is continually finding out some very simple 
cause for some great matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced, 
in my peregrinations about this great metropolis, to blunder 
upon a scene which unfolded to me some of the mysteries of 
the book-making craft, and at once put an end to my 
astonishment. 

I was one summer's day loitering through the great saloons 
of the British Museum, with that listlessness with which one 
is apt to saunter about a room in warm weather; sometimes 
lolling over the glass cases of minerals, sometimes studying 
the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian mummy, and sometimes 
trying, with nearly equal success, to comprehend the alle- 
gorical paintings on the lofty ceilings. While I was gazing 
about in this idle way my attention was attracted to a dis- 
tant door at the end of a suite of apartments. It was closed, 
but every now and then it would open and some strange- 
favored being, generally clothed in black, would steal forth 
and glide through the rooms, without noticing any of the 
surrounding objects. There was an air of mystery about this 
that piqued my languid curiosity, and I determined to at- 
tempt the passage of that strait, and to explore the unknown 
regions that lay beyond. The door yielded to my hand with 
all that facility with which the portals of enchanted castles 
yield to the adventurous knight-errant. I found myself in 
a spacious chamber, surrounded with great cases of venerable 
books. Above the cases and just under the cornice were 
arranged a great number of quaint, black-looking portraits 
of ancient authors. About the room were placed long tables^ 



TEE ART OF BOOK-MAKING. 65 

with stands for reading and writing, at which sat many pale, 
cadaverous personages, poring intently over dnsty volumes, 
rummaging among moldy manuscripts, and taking copious 
notes of their contents. The most hushed stillness reigned 
through this mysterious apartment, excepting that you might 
hear the racing of pens over sheets of paper, or, occasionally, 
the deep sigh of one of these sages as he shifted his position 
to turn over the page of an old folio; doubtless arising from 
that hollowness and flatulency incident to learned research. 

Now and then one of these personages would write some- 
thing on a small slip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a 
familiar would appear, take the paper in profound silence, 
glide out of the room, and return shortly loaded with pon- 
derous tomes, upon which the other would fall, tooth and 
nail, with famished voracity. I had no longer a doubt that T 
had happened upon a body of magi, deeply engaged in the 
study of occult sciences. The scene reminded me of an old 
Arabian tale, of a philosopher who was shut up in an en- 
chanted library, in the bosom of a mountain, that opened only 
once a year; where he made the spirits of the place obey his 
commands, and bring him books of all kinds of dark knowl- 
edge, so that at the end of the year, when the magic portal 
once more swung open on its hinges, he issued forth so versed 
in forbidden lore, as to be able to soar above the heads of the 
multitude, and to control the powers of Nature. 

My curiosity being now fully aroused, I whispered to one of 
the familiars, as he was about to leave the room, and begged 
an interpretation of the strange scene before me. A few 
words were su£S.cient for the purpose: — ^I found that these 
mysterious personages, whom I had mistaken for magi, were 
principally authors, and were in the very act of manufactur- 
ing books. I was, in fact, in the reading-room of the great 
British Library, an immense collection of volumes of all ages 
and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most 
of which are seldom read. To these sequestered pools of 
obsolete literature, therefore, do many modem authors repair, 
and draw buckets full of classic lore, cr " pure English, unde- 
filed," wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought. 

Being now in possession of the secret, I sat down in a cor- 
ner, and watched the process of this book manufactory. I 
noticed one lean, bilious-looking wight, who sought none but 
the most worm-eaten volumes, printed in black-letter. He 
was evidently constructing some work of profound erudition. 



66 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

that would be purchased by every man who wished to be 
thought learned, placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his 
library, or laid open upon his table^ — ^but never read. I ob- 
served him, now and then, draw a large fragment of biscuit 
out of his pocket, and gnaw; whether it was his dinner, or 
whether he was endeavoring to keep off that exhaustion of 
the stomach, produced by much pondering over dry works, I 
leave to harder students than myself to determine. 

There was one dapper little gentleman in bright colored 
clothes, with a chirping gossiping expression of countenance, 
who had all the appearance of an author on good terms with 
his bookseller. After considering him attentively, I recog- 
nized in him a diligent getter-up of miscellaneous works, 
which bustled off well with the trade. I was curious to see 
how he manufactured his wares. He made more stir and show 
of business than any of the others; dipping into various books, 
fluttering over the leaves of manuscripts, taking a morsel out 
of one, a morsel out of another, " line upon line, precept upon 
precept, here a little and there a little." The contents of his 
book seemed to be as heterogeneous as those of the witches' 
caldron in " Macbeth.'' It was here a finger and there a 
thumb, toe of frog and a blind worm's sting, with his own 
gossip poured in like " baboon's blood," to make the medley 
'' slab and good." 

After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be 
implanted in authors for wise purposes? may it not be the 
way in which Providence has taken care that the seeds of 
knowledge and wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in 
spite of the inevitable decay of the works in which they were 
first produced? We see that Nature has wisely, though 
whimsically, provided for the conveyance of seeds from clime 
to clime, in the maws of certain birds; so that animals, which, 
in themselves, are little better than carrion, and apparently 
the lawless plunderers of the orchard and the corn-field, are, 
in fact. Nature's carriers to disperse and perpetuate her bless- 
ings. In like manner, the beauties and fine thoughts of 
ancient and obsolete writers are caught up by these flights of 
predatory authors, and cast forth, again to flourish and bear 
fruit in a remote and distant tract of time. Many of their 
works, also', undergo a kind of metempsychosis, and spring up 
under new forms. What was formerly a ponderous history, 
revives in the shape of a romance — an old legend changes into 
a modem play — ^and a sober philosophical treatise furnishes 



THE ABT OF BOOK-MAKING. 67 

the body for a whole series of bouncing and sparkling essays. 
Thus it is in the clearing of our American woodlands; where 
we bum down a forest of stately pines, a progeny of dwarf 
oaks start up in their place; and we never see the prostrate 
trunk of a tree, moldering into soil, but it gives birth to a 
whole tribe of fungi. 

Let us not, then, lament over the decay and oblivion into 
which ancient writers descend; they do but submit to the 
great law of Nature, which declares that all sublunary shapes 
of matter shall be limited in their duration, but which de- 
crees, also, that their elements shall never perish. Genera- 
tion after generation, both in animal and vegetable life, passes 
away, but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and 
the species continue to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget 
authors, and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good 
old age they sleep with their fathers; that is to say, with the 
authors who preceded them — and from whom they had stolen. 

Whilst I was indulging in these rambling fancies I had 
leaned my head against a pile of reverend folios. Whether 
it was owing to the soporific emanations from these works; 
or to the profound quiet of the room; or to the lassitude aris- 
ing from much wandering; or to an unlucky habit of napping 
at improper times and places, with which I am grievously 
afiiicted, so it was, that I fell into a doze. Still, however, my 
imagination continued busy, and indeed the same scene re- 
mained before my mind's eye, only a little changed in some 
of the details. I dreamt that the chamber was still deco- 
rated with the portraits of ancient authors, but the number 
was increased. The long tables had disappeared, and in place 
of the sage magi, I beheld a ragged, threadbare throng, such 
as may be seen plying about the great repository of cast-off 
clothes, Monmouth Street. Whenever they seized upon a 
book, by one of those incongruities common to dreams, me- 
thought it turned into a garment of foreign or antique 
fashion, with which they proceeded to equip themselves. I 
noticed, however, that no one pretended to clothe himself 
from any particular suit, but took a sleeve from one, a cape 
from another, a skirt from a third, thus decking himself out 
piecemeal, while some of his original rags would peep out 
from among his borrowed finery. 

There was a portly, rosy, well-fed parson, whom I observed 
ogling several moldy polemical writers through an eyeglass. 
H^ ^Qon contriyed to slip on the YQli^iwiinous mantle of on^ of 



68 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

the old fathers, and having purloined the gray heard of an- 
other, endeavored to look exceedingly wise; but the smirking 
commonplace of his countenance set at nought all the trap- 
pings of wisdom. One sickly looking gentleman was busied 
embroidering a very flimsy garment with gold thread drawn 
out of several old court-dresses of the reign of Queen Eliza- 
beth. Another had trimmed himself magnificently from an 
illuminated manuscript, had stuck a nosegay in his bosom, 
culled from " The Paradise of Dainty Devices," and having 
put Sir Philip Sidney's hat on one side of his head, strutted 
off with an exquisite air of vulgar elegance. A third, who 
was but of puny dimensions, had bolstered himself out 
bravely with the spoils from several obscure tracts of phi- 
losophy, so that he had a very imposing front, but he was 
lamentably tattered in rear, and I perceived that he had 
patched his small-clothes with scraps of parchment from a 
Latin author. 

There were some well-dressed gentlemen, it is true, who 
only helped themselves to a gem or so, which sparkled among 
their own ornaments, without eclipsing them. Some, too, 
seemed to contemplate the costumes of the old writers, merely 
to imbibe their principles of taste, and to catch their air and 
spirit; but I grieve to say, that too many were apt to array 
themselves, from top to toe, in the patchwork manner I have 
mentioned. I should not omit to speak of one genius, in 
drab breeches and gaiters, and an Arcadian hat, who had a 
violent propensity to the pastoral, but whose rural wander- 
ings had been confined to the classic haunts of Primrose Hill, 
and the solitudes of the Eegent's Park. He had decked him- 
self in wreaths and ribands from all the old pastoral poets, 
and hanging his head on one side, went about with a fantas- 
tical, lackadaisical air, "babbling about green fields." But 
the personage that most struck my attention, was a prag- 
matical old gentleman, in clerical robes, with a remarkably 
large and square, but bald head. He entered the room wheez- 
ing and pufl&ng, elbowed his way through the throng, with a 
look of sturdy self-confidence, and having laid hands upon a 
thick Greek quarto, clapped it upon his head, and swept ma- 
jestically away in a formidable frizzled wig. 

In the height of this literary masquerade, a cry suddenly 
resounded from every side, of " Thieves! thieves! " I looked, 
and lo! the portraits about the walls became animated! The 
old authors thrust out first a head, then a shoulder, from the 



THE ART OF BOOK-MAKING. 69 

canvas, looked down curiously, for an instant, upon the mot- 
ley throng, and then descended, with fury in their eyes, to 
claim their rifled property. The scene of scampering and 
hubbub that ensued baffles all description. The unhappy 
culprits endeavored in vain to escape with their plunder. On 
one side might be seen half-a-dozen old monks, stripping a 
modern professor; on another, there was sad devastation 
carried into the ranks of modem dramatic writers. Beau- 
mont and Fletcher, side by side, raged round the field like 
Castor and Pollux, and sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more 
wonders than when a volunteer with the army in Flanders. 
As to the dapper little compiler of farragos, mentioned some 
time since, he had arrived himself in as many patches and 
colors as Harlequin, and there was as fierce a contention of 
claimants about him, as about the dead body of Patroclus. 
I was grieved to see many men, whom I had been accustomed 
to look upon with awe and reverence, fain to steal off with 
scarce a rag to cover their nakedness. Just then my eye was 
caught by the pragmatical old gentleman in the Greek 
grizzled wig, who was scrambling away in sore affright with 
half a score of authors in full cry after him. They were close 
upon his haunches; in a twinkling off went his wig; at every 
turn some strip of raiment was peeled away; until in a few 
moments, from his domineering pomp, he shrunk into a little 
pursy, " chopped bald shot," and made his exit with only a 
few tags and rags fluttering at his back. 

There was something sO' ludicrous in the catastrophe of 
this learned Theban, that I burst into an immoderate fit of 
laughter, which broke the whole illusion. The tumult and 
the scuffle were at an end. The chamber resumed its usual 
appearance. The old authors shrunk back into their picture- 
frames, and hung in shadowy solemnity along the walls. In 
short, I found myself wide awake in my comer, with the 
whole assemblage of bookworms gazing at me with astonish- 
ment. Nothing of the dream had been real but my burst of 
laughter, a sound never before heard in that grave sanctuary, 
and so abhorrent to the ears of wisdom, as to electrify the 
fraternity. 

The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded 
whether I had a card of admission. At first I did not com- 
prehend him, but I soon found that the library was a kind of 
Mterary " preserve," subject to game laws, and that no one 
must presume to hunt there without special license and per- 



10 mE SKETCH-BOOK, 

mission. In a word, I stood convicted of being an arrant 
poacher, and was glad to make a precipitate retreat, lest I 
should have a whole pack of authors let loose upon me. 



A ROYAL POET. 

Though your body be confined 

And soft love a prisoner bound, 
Yet the beauty of your mind 

Neither check nor chain hath found. 
Look out nobly, then, and dare 
Even the fetters that you wear. 

— Fletcher. 

On" a soft sunny morning in the genial month of May, I 
made an excursion to Windsor Castle. It is a place full of 
storied and poetical associations. The very external aspect 
of the proud old pile is enough to inspire high thought. It 
rears its irregular walls and massive towers, like a mural 
crown around the brow of a lofty ridge, waves its royal ban- 
ner in the clouds, and looks down with a lordly air upon the 
surrounding world. 

On this morning, the weather was of this voluptuous ver- 
nal kind which calls forth all the latent romance of a man's 
temperament, filling his mind with music, and disposing him 
t,o quote poetry and dream of beauty. In wandering through 
the magnificent saloons and long echoing galleries of the 
castle, I passed with indifference by whole rows of portraits 
of warriors and statesmen, but lingered in the chamber where 
hang the likenesses of the beauties that graced the gay court 
of Charles II.; and as I gazed upon them, depicted with 
amorous half-disheveled tresses, and the sleepy eye of 
love, I blessed the pencil of Sir Peter Lely, which had thus 
enabled me to bask in the reflected rays of beauty. In tra- 
versing also the " large green courts," with sunshine beaming 
on the gray walls and glancing along the velvet turf, my mind 
was engrossed with the image of. the tender, the gallant, but 
hapless Surrey, and his account of his loiterings about them 
in his stripling days, when enamored of the Lady Geraldine: 

" With eyes cast up unto the maiden's tower, 
With easie sighs, such as men draw in love." 

In ^his mood of mere poetical susceptibility, I visited the 
anciidnt keep of the castle, where James I. of Scotland, the 



A ROTAL POET. 11 

pride and theme of Scottish poets and historians, was for 
many years of his yonth detained a prisoner of state. It is 
a large gray tower, that has stood the brunt of ages, and is 
still in good preserration. It stands on a monnd which ele- 
vates it above the other parts of the castle, and a great flight 
of steps leads to the interior. In the armory, which is a 
Gothic hall, furnished with Weapons of various kinds and 
ages, I was shown a coat of armor hanging against the wall, 
which I was told had once belonged to James. From hence 
I was conducted up a staircase to a suite of apartments of 
faded magnificence, hung with storied tapestry, which formed 
his prison, and the scene of that passionate and fanciful 
amour, which has woven into the web of his story the magical 
hues of poetry and fiction. 

The whole history of this amiable but unfortunate prince is 
highly romantic. At the tender age of eleven, he was sent 
from his home by his father, Eobert III., and destined for the 
French court, to be reared under the eye of the French mon- 
arch, secure from the treachery and danger that surrounded 
the royal house of Scotland. It was his mishap, in the course 
of his voyage, to fall into the hands of the English, and he 
was detained a prisoner by Henry IV., notwithstanding that 
a truce existed between the two countries. 

The intelligence of his capture, coming in the train of 
many sorrows and disasters, proved fatal to his unhappy 
father. 

^^ The news,^' we are told, " was brought to him while at 
supper, and did so overwhelm him with grief, that he was 
almost ready to give up the ghost into the hands of the serv- 
ants that attended him. But being carried to his bed- 
chamber, he abstained from all food, and in three days died 
of hunger and grief, at Eothesay." * 

James was detained in captivity above eighteen years; but 
though deprived of personal liberty, he was treated with the 
respect due to his rank. Care was taken to instruct him in 
all the branches of useful knowledge cultivated at that period, 
and to give him those mental and personal accomplishments 
deemed proper for a prince. Perhaps in this respect, his im- 
prisonment was an advantage, as it enabled him to apply him- 
self the more exclusively to his improvement, and quietly to 
imbibe that rich fund of knowledge, and to cherish those ele- 

* Buchanan. 



12 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

gant tastes, which have given such a luster to his memory. 
The picture drawn of him in early life, by the Scottish his- 
torians, is highly captivating, and seems rather the descrip- 
tion of a hero of romance, than of a character in real history. 
He was well learnt, we are told, " to fight with the sword, to 
Joust, to tournay, to wrestle, to sing and dance; he was an 
expert mediciner, right crafty in playing both of lute and 
harp, and sundry other instruments of music, and was expert 
in grammar, oratory, and poetry." * 

With this combination of manly and delicate accomplish- 
ments, fitting him to shine both in active and elegant life, and 
calculated to give him an intense relish for joyous existence, 
it must have been a severe trial, in an age of bustle and chiv- 
alry, to pass the springtime of his years in monotonous cap- 
tivity. It was the good fortune of James, however, to be 
gifted with a powerful poetic fancy, and to be visited in his 
prison by the choicest inspirations of the muse. Some minds 
corrode, and grow inactive, under the loss of personal liberty; 
others grow morbid and irritable; but it is the nature of the 
poet to become tender and imaginative in the loneliness of 
confinement. He banquets upon the honey of his own 
thoughts, and, like the captive bird, pours forth his soul in 
melody. 

" Have you not seen the nightingale, 
A pilgrim coop'd into a cage, 
How doth she chant her wonted tale, 
In that her lonely hermitage ! " 

** Even there her charming melody doth prove 
That all her boughs are trees, her cage a grove." f 

Indeed, it is the divine attribute of the imagination, that it 
is irrepressible, unconfinable; that when the real world is shut 
out, it can create a world for itself, and, with necromantic 
power, can conjure up glorious shapes and forms, and bril- 
liant visions, to make solitude populous, and irradiate the 
gloom of the dungeon. Such was the world of pomp and 
pageant that lived round Tasso in his dismal cell at Ferrara, 
when he conceived the splendid scenes of his " Jerusalem "; 
and we may conceive the " King's Quair," ij: composed by 
James during his captivity at Windsor, as> another of those 

* Bellenden's translation of Hector Boyce. 

+ Roger L'E strange. 

\. Quair, an old term for Book. 



A ROYAL POET. *IS 

beautiful breakings forth of the soul from the restraint and 
gloom of the prison-house^ 

The subject of his poem is his love for the lady Jane Beau- 
fort, daughter of the Earl of Somerset, and a princess of the 
blood-royal of England, of whom he became enamored in the 
course of his captivity. What gives it peculiar value, is, that 
it may be considered a transcript of the royal bard^s true feel- 
ings, and the story of his real loves and fortunes. It is not 
often that sovereigns write poetry, or that poets deal in fact. 
It is gratifying to the pride of a common man, to find a mon- 
arch thus suing, as it were, for admission into his closet, and 
seeking to win his favor by administering to his pleasures. It 
is a proof of the honest equality of intellectual competition, 
which strips off all the trappings of factitious dignity, brings 
the candidate down to a level with his fellow-men, and obliges 
him to depend on his own native powers for distinction. It 
is curious, too, to get at the history of a monarch's heart, and 
to find the simple affections of human nature throbbing under 
the ermine. But James had learnt to be a poet before he 
was a king; he was schooled in adversity, and reared in the 
company of his own thoughts. Monarchs have seldom time 
to parley with their hearts, or to meditate their minds into 
poetry; and had James been brought up amidst the adula- 
tion and gayety of a court, we should never, in all probability, 
have had such a poem as the Quair. 

I have been particularly interested by those parts of the 
poem which breathe his immediate thoughts concerning his 
situation, or which are connected with the apartment in the 
Tower. They have thus a personal and local charm, and are 
given with such circumstantial truth, as to make the reader 
present with the captive in his prison, and the companion of 
his meditations. 

Such is the account which he gives of his weariness of 
spirit, and of the incident that first suggested the idea of writ- 
ing the poem. It was the still mid-watch of a clear moon- 
light night; the stars, he says, were twinkling as the fire in 
the high vault of heaven, and " Cynthia rinsing her golden 
locks in Aquarius " — he lay in bed wakeful and restless, and 
took a book to beguile the tedious hours. The book he chose 
was Boetius' " Consolations of Philosophy,'' a work popular 
among the writers of that day, and which had been translated 
by his great pa-ototype Chaucer. From the high eulogium in 
which he indulges, it is evident this was one of his favorite 



li THE SKETCH-BOOK 

volumes while in prison; and indeed, it is an admirable text- 
book for meditation under adversity. It is the legacy of a 
noble and enduring spirit, purified by sorrow and suffering, 
bequeathing to its successors in calamity the maxims of sweet 
morality, and the trains of eloquent but simple reasoning, by 
which it was enabled to bear up against the various ills of 
life. It is a talisman which the unfortunate may treasure up 
in his bosom, or, like the good King James^ lay upon his 
nightly pillow. 

After closing the volume, he turns its contents over in his 
mind, and gradually falls into a fit of musing on the fickle- 
ness of fortune, the vicissitudes of his own life, and the evils 
that had overtaken him even in his tender youth. Suddenly 
he hears the bell ringing to matins, but its sound chiming in 
with his melancholy fancies, seems to him like a voice exhorts 
ing him to write his story. In the spirit of poetic errantry, 
he determines to comply with this intimation; he therefore 
takes pen in hand, makes with it a sign of the cross, to implore 
a benediction, and sallies forth into the fairyland of poetry. 
There is something extremely fanciful in all this, and it is 
interesting, as furnishing a striking and beautiful instance of 
the simple manner in which whole trains of poetical thought 
are sometimes awakened, and literary enterprises suggested 
to the mind. 

In the course of his poem, he more than once bewails the 
peculiar hardness of his fate, thus doomed to lonely and inac- 
tive life, and shut up from the freedom and pleasure of the. 
world, in which the meanest animal indulges unrestrained. 
There is a sweetness, however, in his very complaints; they 
are the lamentations of an amiable and social spirit, at being 
denied the indulgence of its kind and generous propensities; 
there is nothing in them harsh or exaggerated; they flow with 
a natural and touching pathos, and are perhaps rendered more 
touching by their simple brevity. They contrast finely with 
those elaborate and iterated repinings which we sometimes 
meet with in poetry, the effusions of morbid minds, sickening 
under miseries of their own creating, and venting their bitter- 
ness upon an unoffending world. James speaks of his priva- 
tions with acute sensibility; but, having mentioned them, 
passes on, as if his manly mind disdained to brood over un- 
avoidable calamities. When such a spirit breaks forth into 
complaint, however brief, we are aware how great must be the 
sufferings tha;t extorts the murmur. W© sympathize with 



A ROYAL POET. 75 

James, a romantic, active, and accomplished prince, cut off in 
the lustihood of youth from all the enterprise, the noble uses 
and vigorous delights of life, as we do with Milton, alive to 
all the beauties of nature and glories of art, when he breathes 
forth brief but deep-toned lamentations over his perpetual 
blindness. 

Had not James evinced a deficiency of poetic artifice, we 
might almost have suspected that these lowerings of gloomy 
reflection were meant as preparative to the brightest scene of 
his story, and to contrast with that effulgence of light and 
loveliness, that exhilarating accompaniment of bird, and song, 
and foliage, and flower, and all the revel of the year, with 
which he ushers in the lady of his heart. It is this scene in 
particular which throws all the magic of romance about the 
old castle keep. He had risen, he says, at daybreak, accord- 
ing to custom, to escape from the dreary meditations of a 
sleepless pillow. " Bewailing in his chamber thus alone," 
despairing of all joy and remedy, " for, tired of thought, and 
woe-begone,^^ he had wandered to the window, to indulge the 
captive^s miserable solace, of gazing wistfully upon the world 
from which he is excluded. The window looked forth upon 
a small garden which lay at the foot of the tower. It was a 
quiet, sheltered spot, adorned with arbors jand green alleys, 
and protected from the passing gaze by trees and hawthorn 
hedges. 

" Now was there made, fast by the tower's wall, 

A garden faire, and in the corners set 
An arbour green with wandis long and small 

Railed about, and so with leaves beset 
Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet, 

That lyf* was none, walkyng there forbye, 

That might within scarce any wight espye. 

*' So thick the branches and the leves grene, 
Beshaded all the alleys that there were, 

And midst of every arbour might be sene 
The sharpe, grene, swete juniper, 

Growing so faire, with branches here and there. 
That as it seemed to a lyf without. 
The boughs did spread the arbour all about. 

*' And on the small green twistis f set 

The lytel swete nyghtingales, and sung, 
So loud and clere, the hymnis consecrate 

Of lovis use, now soft, now loud among, 
That all the garden and the wallis rung 
Ryght of their song — " 

* Lyf, person. f Twistis, small boughs or twigs, 

Note. — The language of the quotations is generally modernized. 



Y6 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

It was the month of May, when everything was in bloom, 
and he interprets the song of the nightingale into the lan- 
guage of his enamored feeling: 

" "Worship all ye that lovers be this May; 
For of your bliss the kalends are begun, 
And sing with us, away, winter, away. 
Come, summer, come, the sweet season and sun." 

As he gazes on the scene, and listens to the notes of the 
birds, he gradually lapses into one of those tender and unde- 
finable reveries, which fill the youthful bosom in this delicious 
season. He wonders what this love may be, of which he has 
so often read, and which thus seems breathed forth in the 
quickening breath of May, and melting all nature into ecstasy 
and song. If it really be sO' great a felicity, and if it be a 
boon thus generally dispensed to the most insignificant of 
beings, why is he alone cut off from its enjoyments? 

" Oft would I think, O Lord, what may this be. 

That love is of such noble myght and kynde? 
Loving his folk, and such prosperitee, 

Is it of him, as we in books do find; 
May he oure hertes setten* and unbynd: 
Hath he upon oure hertes such maistrye? 
Or is all this but fey nit f antasye ? 
For giff he be of so grete excellence 

That he of every wight hath care and charge. 
What have I gilt f to him, or done offence. 

That I am thral'd and birdis go at large? " 

In the midst of his musing, as he casts his eyes downward, 
he beholds " the fairest and freshest young floure " that ever 
he had seen. It is the lovely Lady Jane, walking in the gar- 
den to enjoy the beauty of that " fresh May morrowe.'^ 
Breaking thus suddenly upon his sight in a moment of lone- 
liness and excited susceptibility, she at once captivates the 
fancy of the romantic prince, and becomes the object of his 
wandering wishes, the sovereign of his ideal world. 

There is in this charming scene an evident resemblance to 
the early part of Chaucer's " Knight's Tale," where Palamon 
and Arcite fall in love with Emilia, whom they see walking 
in the garden of their prison. Perhaps the similarity of the 
actual fact to the incident which he had read in Chaucer, 
may have induced Jam.es to dwell on it in, his poem. His 

* Setten, incline. f Oilt, what injury have I done, etc. 



A ROYAL POET. 1*1 

description of the Lady Jane is given in the pictiiresqite and 
minute manner of his master, and being, doubtless, taken 
from the life, is a perfect portrait of a beauty of that day. 
He dwells with the fondness of a lover on every article of her 
apparel, from the net of pearls, splendent with emeralds and 
sapphires, that confined her golden hair, even to the " goodly 
chaine of small orf everye '^ * about her neck, whereby there 
hung a ruby in shape of a heart, that seemed, he says, like a 
spark of fire burning upon her white bosom. Her dress of 
white tissue was looped up, to enable her to walk with more 
freedom. She was accompanied by two female attendants, 
and about her sported a little hound decorated with bells, 
probably the small Italian hound, of exquisite S5rnimetry, 
which was a parlor favorite and pet among the fashionable 
dames of ancient times. James closes his description by a 
burst of general eulogium: 

** In her was youth, beauty with humble port 
Bountee, richesse, and womanly feature, 

God better knows than my pen can report. 
Wisdom, largesse, f estate, t and cunning§ sure. 

In every point so guided her measure. 
In word, in deed, in shape, in countenance. 

That nature might no more her child advance." 

The departure of the Lady Jane from the gardens puts an 
end to this transient riot of the heart. With her departs the 
amorous illusion that had shed a temporary charm over the 
scene of his captivity, and he relapses into loneliness, now 
rendered tenfold more intolerable by this passing beam of 
unattainable beauty. Through the long and weary day he 
repines at his unhappy lot, and when evening approaches and 
Phoebus, as he beautifully expresses it, had " bade farewell to 
every leaf and flower," he still lingers at the window, and, 
la5dng his head upon the cold stone, gives vent to a mingled 
flow of love and sorrow, until, gradually lulled by the mute 
melancholy of the twilight hour, he lapses, "half-sleeping, 
half-swoon," into a vision, which occupies the remainder of 
the poem, and in which is allegorically shadowed out the his- 
tory of his passion. 

When he wakes from his trance, he rises from his stony 
pillow, and pacing his apartment full of dreary reflections, 

* Wrought gold. f Largesse, bounty. 

X Estate, dignity. ^ Cunning, discretion, 



Y8 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

questions his spirit whither it has been wandering; whether, 
indeed, all that has passed before his dreaming fancy has been 
conjured up by preceding circumstances, or whether it is a 
vision intended to comfort and assure him in his despondency. 
If the latter, he prays that some token may be sent to confirm 
the promise of happier days, given him in his slumbers. 

Suddenly a turtle-dove of the purest whiteness comes flying 
in at the window, and alights upon his hand, bearing in her 
bill a branch of red gilliflower, on the leaves of which is writ- 
ten in letters of gold, the following sentence: 

" Awake! awake! I bring, lover, I bring 
The newis glad, that blissful is and sure, 
Of thy comfort; now laugh, and play, and sing, 
For in the heaven decretit is thy cure." 

He receives the branch with mingled hope and dread; reads 
it with rapture, and this he says was the first token of his suc- 
ceeding happiness. "Whether this is a mere poetic fiction, or 
whether the Lady Jane did actually send him a token of her 
favor in this romantic way, remains to be determined accord- 
ing to the faith or fancy of the reader. He concludes his 
poem by intimating that the promise conveyed in the vision, 
and by the flower, is fulfilled by his being restored to liberty, 
and made happy in the possession of the sovereign of his 
heart. 

Such is the poetical account given by James of his love ad- 
ventures in Tindsor Castle. How much of it is absolute 
fact, and how much the embellishment of fancy, it is fruitless 
to conjecture; do not, however, let us always consider what- 
ever is romantic as incompatible with real life, but let us 
sometimes take a poet at his word. I have noticed merely 
such parts of the poem as were immediately connected with 
the tower, and have passed over a large part which was in the 
allegorical vein, so much cultivated at that day. The lan- 
guage of course is quaint and antiquated, so that the beauty 
of many of its golden phrases will scarcely be perceived at the 
present day; but it is impossible not to be charmed with the 
genuine sentiment, the delightful artlessness and urbanity, 
which prevail throughout it. The descriptions of Nature, 
too, with which it is embellished, are given with a truth, a dis- 
crimination, and a freshness, worthy of the most cultivated 
period of the arts. 

As w. aift3.torj poem^ it is edifying, in these days of coa,rs§y 



THE BOTAL POET. ^9 

thinking, to notice the nature, refinement, and exquisite deli- 
cacy which pervade it, banishing every gross thought, or im- 
modest expression, and presenting female loveliness clothed 
in all its chivalrous attributes of almost supernatural purity 
and grace. 

James flourished nearly about the tim© of Chaucer and 
Gower, and was evidently an admirer and studier of their 
writings. Indeed, in one of his stanzas he asknowledges 
them as his masters, and in some parts of his poem we find 
traces of similarity to their productions, more especially to 
those of Chaucer. There are always, however, general feat- 
ures of resemblance in the works of cotemporary authors, 
which are not so much borrowed from each other as from the 
times. Writers, like bees, toll their sweets in the wide world; 
they incorporate with their own conceptions the anecdotes 
and thoughts which are current in society, and thus each 
generation has some features in common, characteristic of the 
age in which it lives. James in fact belongs to one of the 
most brilliant eras of our hterary history, and establishes the 
claims of his country to a participation in its primitive honors. 
Whilst a small cluster of English writers are constantly cited 
as the fathers of our verse, the name of their great Scottish 
compeer is apt to be passed over in silence; but he is evidently 
worthy of being enrolled in that little constellation of remote, 
but never-failing luminaries, who shine in the highest firma- 
ment of literature, and who, like morning stars, sang together 
at the bright dawning of British poesy. 

Such of my readers as may not be familiar with Scottish 
history (though the manner in which it has. of late been 
woven with captivating fiction has made it a universal study), 
may be curious to learn something of the subsequent history 
of James, and the fortunes of his love. His passion for the 
Lady Jane, as it was the solace of his captivity, so it facili- 
tated his release, it being imagined by the Court, that a con- 
nection with the blood-royal of England would attach him to 
its own interests. He was ultimately restored to his liberty 
and crown, having previously espoused the Lady Jane, who 
accompanied him to Scotland, and made him a most tender 
and devoted wife. 

He found his kingdom in great confusion, the feudal chief- 
tains having taken advantage of the troubles and irregulari- 
ties of a long interregnum to strengthen themselves in their 
possessions, and place themselves above tjie power of the laws. 



80 TBB SKETtJH-BOOK. 

James sought to find the basis of his power in the affections 
of his people. He attached the lower orders to him by the 
reformation of abuses, the temperate and equable adminis- 
tration of justice^, the encouragement of the arts of peace, and 
the promotion of everything that could diffuse comfort, com- 
petency, and innocent enjoyment, through the humblest 
ranks of society. He mingled occasionally among the com- 
mon people in disguise; visited their firesides; entered into 
their cares, their pursuits, and their amusements; informed 
himself of the mechanical artsi, and how they could best be 
patronized and improved; and was thus an all-pervading 
spirit, watching with a benevolent eye over the meanest of his 
subjects. Having in this generous manner made himself 
strong in the hearts of the common people, he turned himself 
to curb the power of the factious nobility; to strip them of 
those dangerous immunities which they had usurped; to 
punish such as had been guilty of flagrant offenses; and to 
bring the whole into proper obedience to the crown. For 
some time they bore this with outward submission, but with 
secret impatience and brooding resentment. A conspiracy 
was at length formed against his life, at the head of which was 
his own uncle, Robert Stewart, Earl of Athol, who, being too 
old himself for the perpetration of the deed of blood, insti- 
gated his grandson, Sir Robert Stewart, together with Sir 
Robert Graham, and others of less note, to commit the deed. 
They broke into his bed-chamber at the Dominican convent 
near Perth, where he was residing, and barbarously murdered 
him by oft-repeated wounds. His faithful queen, rushing to 
throw her tender body between him and the sword, was twice 
wounded in the ineffectual attempt to shield him from the 
assassin; and it was not until she had been forcibly torn from 
his person, that the murder was accomplished. 

It was the recollection of this romantic tale of former times, 
and of the golden little poem, which had its birthplace in this 
tower, that made me visit the old pile with more than com- 
mon interest. The suit of armor hanging up in the hall, 
richly gilt and embellished, as if to figure in the toumay, 
brought the image of the gallant and romantic prince vividly 
before my imagination. I paced the deserted chambers where 
he had composed his poem; I leaned upon the window, and 
endeavored to persuade myself it was the very one where he 
had been visited by his vision; I looked out upon the spot 
where he had first seen the Lady Jane. It was the same 



THE ROYAL POET. 81 

gbnial and joyous month: the birds were again vying with 
each other in strains of liquid melody; everything was burst- 
ing into vegetation, and budding forth the tender promise of 
the year. Time, which delights to obliterate the sterner 
memorials of human pride, seems to have passed lightly over 
this little scene of poetry and love, and to have withheld his 
desolating hand. Several centuries have gone by, yet the 
garden still flourishes at the foot of the tower. It occupies 
what was once the moat of the keep, and though some parts 
have been separated by dividing walls, yet others have still 
their arbors and shaded walks, as in the days of James; and 
the whole is sheltered, blooming, and retired. There is a 
charm about the spot that has been printed by the footsteps 
of departed beauty, and consecrated by the inspirations of the 
poet, which is heightened, rather thaji impaired, by the lapse 
of ages. It is, indeed, the gift of poetry, to hallow every place 
in which it moves; to breathe roiknd nature an odor more ex- 
quisite than the perfume of the rose, and to shed over it a tint 
more magical than the blush of morning. 

Others may dwell on the illi strious deeds of James as a 
warrior and legislator; but I have delighted to view him 
merely as the companion of his fellow-men, the benefactor of 
the human heart, stooping from his high estate to sow the 
sweet flowers of poetry and song in the paths of common life. 
He was the first to cultivate the vigorous and hardy plant of 
Scottish genius, which has since been so prolific of the most 
wholesome and highly flavored fruit. He carried with him 
into the sterner regions of the north, all the fertilizing arts of 
southern refinement. He did everything in his power to win 
his countrymen to the gay, the elegant, and gentle arts which 
soften and refine the character of a people, and wreathe a 
grace round the loftiness of a proud and warlike spirit. 13.% 
wrote many poems, which, unfortunately for the fullness o>f 
his fame, are now lost to the world; one, which is still pre^ 
served, called " Christ's Kirk of the Green," shows how dili- 
gently he had made himself acquainted with the rustic sports 
and pastimes, which constitue such a source of kind and social 
feeling among the Scottish peasantry; and with what simple 
and happy humor he could enter into their enjoyments. He 
contributed greatly to improve the national music; and traces 
of his tender sentiment and elegant taste are said to exist in 
those witching airs, still piped among the wild mountains 
and lonely glens of Scotland. He has thus connected hi^ 



B^ THE BKETOE-nooK. 

image with whatever is most gracious and endearing in the 
national character; he has embalmed his memory in song, 
and floated his name down to after-ages in the rich stream 
of Scottish melody. The recollection of these things was 
kindling at my heart, as I paced the silent scene of his im- 
prisonment. I have visited Vancluse with as mnch enthu- 
siasm as a pilgrim would visit the shrine at Loretto; but I 
have never felt more poetical devotion than when contem- 
plating the old tower and the little garden at Windsor^ and 
musing over the romantic loves of the Lady Jane and the 
Koyal Poet of Scotland. 



THE COUNTEY CHUKCH. 

A gentleman! 
What, o' the woolpack? or the sugar-chest? 
Or lists of velvet? which is't, pound, or yard, 
You vend your gentry by? 

— Beggar's Bush. 

There are few places more favorable to the study of charac- 
ter than an English country church. I was once passing a 
few weeks at the seat of a friend, who resided in the vicinity 
of one, the appearance of which particularly struck my fancy. 
It was one of those rich morsels of quaint antiquity, which 
give such a peculiar charm to English landscape. It stood 
in the midst of a country filled with ancient families, and 
contained, within its cold and silent aisles, the congregated 
dust of many noble generations. The interior walls were en- 
crusted with monuments of every age and style. The light 
streamed through windows dimmed with armorial bearings, 
richly emblazoned in stained glass. In various parts of the 
church were tombs of knights., and high-bom dames, of gor- 
geous workmanship, with their effigies in colored marble. 
On every side, the eye was struck with some instance of 
aspiring mortality; some haughty memorial which human 
pride had erected over its kindred dust, in this temple of the 
most humble of all religions. 

The congregation was composed of the neighboring people 
of rank, who sat in pews sumptuously lined and cushioned, 
furnished with richly gilded prayer books, and decorated with 
their arms upon the pew doors; of the villagers and peasantry, 
who filled the back seats, and a small gallery beside the orgaji; 



THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 83 

and of the poor of the parish, who were ranged on benches in 
the aisles. 

The service was performed by a snuffling, well-fed vicar, 
who had a snug dwelling near the church. He was a privi- 
leged guest at all the tables of the neighborhood, and had been 
the keenest fox hunter in the country, until age and good liv- 
ing had disabled him from doing anything more than ride 
to see the hounds throw off, and make one at the hunting 
dinner. 

Under the ministry of such a pastor, I found it impossible 
to get into the train of thought suitable to the time and place; 
so having, like many other feeble Christians, compro'mised 
with my conscience, by laying the sin of my own delinquency 
at another person's threshold, I occupied myself by making 
observations on my neighbors. 

I was as yet a stranger in England, and curious to notice 
the manners of its fashionable classes. I found, as usual, that 
there was the least pretension where there was the most ac- 
knowledged title to respect. I was particularly struck, for 
instance, with the family of a nobleman of high rank, con- 
sisting of several sons and daughters. Nothing could be 
more simple and unassuming than their appearance. They 
generally came to church in the plainest equipage, and often 
on foot. The young ladies would stop and converse in the 
kindest manner with the peasantry, caress the children, and 
listen to the stories of the humble cottagers. Their counte- 
nances were open and beautifully fair, with an expression of 
high refinement, but at the same time, a frank cheerfulness, 
and engaging affability. Their brothers were tall, and ele- 
gantly formed. They were dressed fashionably, but simply; 
with strict neatness and propriety, but without any manner- 
ism or foppishness. Their whole demeanor was easy and 
natural, with that lofty grace, and noble frankness, which be- 
speak free-bom souls that have never been checked in their 
growth by feelings of inferiority. There is a healthful hardi- 
ness about real dignity, that never dreads contact and com- 
munion with others, however humble. It is only spurious 
pride that is morbid and sensitive, and shrinks from every 
touch. I was pleased to see the manner in which they would 
converse with the peasantry about those rural concerns and 
field sports, in which the gentlemen of this country so much 
delight. In these conversations, there was neither haughti- 
ness on the one part, nor servilitj^ on the othej-; and you wer§ 



84 THE SKETGH-BOOK. 

only reminded of the difference of rank by the habitual re- 
spect of the peasant. 

In contrast to these, was the family of a wealthy citizen, 
who had amassed a vast fortune, and, having purchased the 
estate and mansion of a ruined nobleman in the neighborhood, 
was endeavoring to assume all the style and dignity of a 
hereditary lord of the soil. The family always came to 
church en prince. They were rolled majestically along in a 
carriage emblazoned with arms. The crest glittered in silver 
radiance from every part of the harness where a crest -could 
possibly be placed. A fat coachman in a three-cornered hat, 
richly laced, and a flaxen wig, curling close round his rosy 
face, was seated on a box, with a sleek Danish dog beside him. 
Two footmen in gorgeous liveries, with huge bouquets, and 
gold-headed canes, lolled behind. The carriage rose and sunk 
on its long springs with a peculiar stateliness of motion. The 
very horses champed their bits, arched their necks, and 
glanced their eyes more proudly than common horses; either 
because they had got a little of the family feeling, or were 
reined up more tightly than ordinary. 

I could not but admire the style with which this splendid 
pageant was brought up to the gate of the churchyard. There 
was a vast effect produced at the turning of an angle of the 
wall; — a great smacking of the whip; straining and scram- 
bling of the horses; glistening of harness, and flashing of 
wheels through gravel. This was the moment of triumph and 
vainglory to the coachman. The horses were urged and 
checked, until they were fretted into a foam. They threw 
out their feet in a prancing trot, dashing about pebbles at 
every step. The crowd of villagers sauntering quietly to 
church, opened precipitately to the right and left, gaping in 
vacant admiration. On reaching the gate, the horses were 
pulled up with a suddenness that produced an immediate stop, 
and almost threw them on their haunches. 

There was an extraordinary hurry of the footmen to alight, 
open the door, pull down the steps, and prepare everything 
for the descent on earth of this august family. The old citi- 
zen first emerged his round red face from out the door, look- 
ing about him with the pompous air of a man accustomed to 
rule on 'Change and shake the stock market with a nod. His 
consort, a fine, fleshy, comfortable dame, followed him. There 
seemed, I must confess, but little pride in her composition. 
She was the picture of broad, honest, vulgar enjoyment. The 



THE COtJNTBY CBURCK S5 

world went well with her; and she liked the world. She had 
fine clothes, a fine house, a fine carriage, fine children, every- 
thing was fine about her: it was nothing hut driving about, 
and visiting and feasting. Life was to her a perpetual revel; 
it was one long Lord Mayor's day. 

Two daughters succeeded to tliis goodly couple. They cer- 
tainly were handsome; hut had a supercilious air that chilled 
admiration, and disposed the spectator to he critical. They 
were ultra-fashionable in dress, and, though no one could 
deny the richness of their decorations, yet their inappro- 
priateness might be questioned amidst the simplicity of a 
country church. They descended loftily from the carriage, 
and moved up the line of peasantry with a step that seemed 
dainty of the soil it trod on. They cast an excursive glance 
around, that passed coldly over the burly faces of the 
peasantry, until they met the eyes of the nobleman's family, 
when their countenances immediately brightened into smiles, 
and they made the most profound and elegant courtesies, 
which were returned in a manner that showed they ^ere but 
slight acquaintances. 

I must not forget the two sons of this aspiring citizen, who 
came to church in a dashing curricle, with outriders. They 
were arrayed in the extremity of the mode, with all that 
pedantry of dress which marks the man of questionable pre- 
tensions to style. They kept entirely by themselves, eying 
everyone askance that came near them, as if measuring his 
claims to respectability; yet they were without conversation, 
except the exchange of an occasional cant phrase. They 
even moved artificially, for their bodies, in compliance with 
the caprice of the day, had been disciplined into the absence 
of all ease and freedom. Art had done everything to accom- 
plish them as men of fashion, but Nature had denied them 
the nameless grace. They were vulgarly shaped, like men 
formed for the common purposes of life, and had that air of 
supercilious assumption which is never seen in the true 
gentleman. 

I have been rather minute in drawing the pictures of these 
two families, because I considered them specimens of what is 
often to be met with in this country — the unpretending 
great, and the arrogant little. I have no respect for titled 
rank unless it be accompanied by true nobility of soul; but I 
have remarked, in all countries where these artificial dis- 
tinctions exist, that the very highest classes are always the 



86 THE SKETCHBOOK. 

most courteous and unassuming. Those who are well assured 
of their own standing are least apt to trespass on that of 
others; whereas, nothing is so offensive as the aspirings of 
vulgarity, which thinks to elevate itself by humiliating its 
neighbor. 

As I have brought these families into contrast, I must 
notice their behavior in church. That of the nobleman's 
family was quiet, serious, and attentive. Not that they ap- 
peared to have any fervor of devotion, but rather a respect for 
sacred things and sacred places, inseparable from good breed- 
ing. The others, on the contrary, were in a perpetual flutter 
and whisper; they betrayed a continual consciousness of 
linery, and the sorry ambition of being the wonders of a rural 
congregation. 

The old gentleman was the only one really attentive to the 
service. He took the whole burden of family devotion 
upon himself; standing bolt upright, and uttering the re- 
sponses with a loud voice that might be heard all over the 
church. It was evident that he was one of those thorough 
church and king men, who connect the idea of devotion and 
loyalty; who consider the Deity, somehow or other, of the 
government party, and religion " a very excellent sort of 
thing, that ought to be countenanced and kept up.'' 

When he joined so loudly in the service, it seemed more 
by way of example to the lower orders, to show them that, 
though so great and wealthy, he was not above being religious; 
as I have seen a turtle-fed alderman swallow publicly a basin 
of charity soup, smacking his lips at every mouthful, and 
pronouncing it " excellent food for the poor." 

When the service was at an end, I was curious to witness 
the several exits of my groups. The young noblemen and 
their sisters, as the day was fine, preferred strolling home 
across the fields, chatting with the country people as they 
went. The others departed as they came, in grand parade. 
Again were the equipages wheeled up to the gate. There was 
again the smacking of whips, the clattering of hoofs, and the 
glittering of harness. The horses started off almost at a 
bound; the villagers again hurried to right and left; the 
wheels threw up a cloud of dust, and the aspiring family was 
rapt out of sight in a whirlwind. 



THE WIDOW AND HER SON. S7 



THE WIDOW AND HEE SOK 

Pittie olde age, within whose silver haires 
Honour and reverence evermore have raign'd. 

— Marlowe's '' Tamhurlaine." 

During my residence in the country I used frequently to 
attend at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles, its mold- 
ering monuments, its dark oaken panneling, all reverend 
with the gloom of departing years, seemed to fit it for the 
haunt of solemn meditation. A Sunday, too, in the country 
is so holy in its repose — such a pensive quiet reigns over the 
face of Nature, that every restless passion is charmed down, 
and we feel all the natural religion of the soul gently spring- 
ing up within us. 

" Sweet day, so pure, so calm, so bright. 
The bridal of the earth and sky ! " 

I cannot lay claim to the merit of being a devout man; but 
there are feelings that visit me in a country church, amid 
the beautiful serenity of Nature, which I experience nowhere 
else; and if not a more religious, I think I am a better man 
on Sunday than on any other day of the seven. 

But in this church I felt myself continually thrown back 
upon the world by the frigidity and pomp of the poor worms 
around me. The only being that seemed thoroughly to feel 
the humble and prostrate piety of a true Christian was a poor 
decrepit old woman, bending under the weight of years and 
infirmities. She bore the traces of something better than 
abject poverty. The lingerings of decent pride were visible 
in her appearance. Her dress, though humble in the ex- 
treme, was scrupulously clean. Some trivial respect, too, had 
been awarded her, for she did not take her seat among the 
village poor, but sat alone on the steps of the altar. She 
seemed to have survived all love, all friendship, all society; 
and to have nothing left her but the hopes of Heaven. When 
I saw her feebly rising and bending her aged form in prayer, 
habitually conning her prayer book, which her palsied hand 
and failing eyes could not permit her to read, but which she 
evidently knew by heart, I felt persuaded that the faltering 
voice of that poor woman arose to Heaven far before the re- 
sponses of the clerk, the swell of the organ, or the chanting 
of the choir. 

I am fond of loitering about country churches, aad this 



88 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

was so delightfully situated that it frequently attracted me. 
It stood on a knoll, round which a small stream made a beau- 
tiful bend, and then wound its way through a long reach of 
soft meadow scenery. The church was surrounded by yew 
trees, which seemed almost coeval with itself. Its tall Gothic 
spire shot up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows 
generally wheeling about it. I was seated there one still, 
sunny morning, watching two laborers who were digging a 
grare. They had chosen one of the most remote and 
neglected corners of the churchyard, where, by the number 
of nameless graves around, it would appear that the indigent 
and friendless were huddled into the earth. I was told that 
the new-made grave was for the only son of a poor widow. 
While I was meditating on the distinctions of worldly rank 
which extend thus down into the very dust, the toll of the 
bell announced the approach of the funeral. They were the 
obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. 
A coffin of the plainest materials, without pall or other cover- 
ing, was borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked 
before, with an air of cold indifference. There were no mock 
mourners in the trappings of affected woe, but there was one 
real mourner, who feebly tottered after the corpse. It was the 
aged mother of the deceased — the poor old woman whom I 
had seen seated on the steps of the altar. She was supported 
by an humble friend, who was endeavoring to comfort her. A 
few of the neighboring poor had joined the train, and some 
children of the village were running hand in hand, now shout- 
ing with unthinking mirth, and now pausing to gaze with 
childish curiosity on the grief of the mourner. 

As the funeral train approached the grave the parson issued 
from the church porch, arrayed in the surplice, with prayer 
book in hand, and attended by the clerk. The service, how- 
ever, was a mere act of charity. The deceased had been desti- 
tute, and the survivor was penniless. It was shuffled through, 
therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeelingly. The well- 
fed priest moved but a few steps from the church door; his 
voice could scarcely be heard at the grave; and never did I 
hear the funeral service, that sublime and touching ceremony, 
turned into such a frigid mummery of words. 

I approached the grave. The coffin was placed on the 
ground. On it were inscribed the name and age of the de- 
ceased — " George Somers, aged 26 years." The poor mother 
had been assisted to kneel down at the head of it. Her with- 



THE WIDOW AND HEE SON. 89 

ered hands were clasped^ as if in prayer; but I could perceive, 
by a feeble rocking of the body and a convulsive motion of 
the lips, that she was gazing on the last relics of her son with 
the yearnings of a mother's heart. 

Preparations were made to deposit the coffin in the earth. 
There was that bustling stir which breaks so harshly on the 
feehngs of grief and affection; directions given in the cold 
tones of business; the striking of spades into sand and gravel; 
which, at the grave of those we love, is of all sounds the most 
withering. The bustle around seemed to waken the mother 
from a wretched reverie. She raised her glazed eyes and 
looked about with a faint wildness. As the men approached 
with cords to lower the coffin into the grave, she wrung her 
hands and broke into an agony of grief. The poor woman 
who attended her took her by the arm, endeavored to raise her 
from the earth, and to whisper something like consolation: 
^' Nay, now — nay, now; don't take it so sorely to heart. '^ 
She could only shake her head and wring her hands, as one 
not to be comforted. 

As they lowered the body into the earth the creaking of the 
cords seemed to agonize her; but when, on some accidental 
obstruction, there was a jostling of the coffin, all the tender- 
ness of the mother burst forth; as if any harm could come to 
him who was far beyond the reach of worldly suffering. 

I could see no more; my heart swelled into my throat: — ^my 
eyes filled with tears; I felt as if I were acting a barbarous 
part in standing by and gazing idly on this scene of maternal 
anguish. I wandered to another part of the churchyard, 
where I remained until the funeral train had dispersed. 

When I saw the mother slowly and painfully quitting the 
grave, leaving behind her the remains of all that was dear to 
her on earth, and returning to silence and destitution, my 
heart ached for her. What, thought I, are the distresses of 
the rich? They have friends to soothe — ^pleasures to beguile 
— a world to divert and dissipate their griefs. What are the 
sorrows of the young? Their growing minds soon close above 
the wound — ^their elastic spirits soon rise beneath the pres- 
sure — their green and ductile affections soon twine around 
new objects. But the sorrows of the poor, who have no out- 
ward appliances to soothe — the sorrows of the aged, with 
whom life at best is but a wintry day, and who can look for 
no aftergrowth of joy — the sorrows of a widow, aged, solitary, 
destitute, mourning over an only son, the last solace of her 



/■' THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

years — these are indeed sorrows which make us feel the im- 
potency of consolation. 

It was some time before I left the churchyard. On my way 
homeward I met with the woman who had acted as comforter; 
she was just returning from accompanying the mother to 
her lonely habitation, and I drew from her some particulars 
connected with the affecting scene I had witnessed. 

The parents of the deceased had resided in the village from 
childhood. They had inhabited one of the neatest cottages, 
and by various rural occupations and the assistance of a small 
garden, had supported themselves creditably and comfortably, 
and led a happy and a blameless life. They had one son, who 
had grown up to be the staff and pride of their age. " Oh, 
sir! " said the good woman, " he was such a comely lad, so 
sweet-tempered, so kind to everyone around him, so dutiful to 
his parents! It did one's heart good to see him of a Sunday, 
dressed out in his best, so tall, so straight, so cheery, support- 
ing his old mother to church — for she was always fonder of 
leaning on George's, arm than on her good man's; and, poor 
soul, she might well be proud of him, for a finer lad there 
was not in the country round." 

Unfortunately, the son was tempted, during a year of 
scarcity and agricultural hardship, to enter into the service 
of one of the small craft that plied on a neighboring river. 
He had not been long in this employ when he was entrapped 
by a press-gang and carried off to sea. His parents received 
tidings of his seizure, but beyond that they could learn 
nothing. It was the loss of their main prop. The father, 
who was already infirm, grew heartless and melancholy, and 
sunk into his grave. The widow, left lonely in her age and 
feebleness, could no longer support herself, and came upon 
the parish. Still, there was a kind of feeling toward her 
throughout the village, and a certain respect as being one 
of the oldest inhabitants. As no one applied for the cottage 
in which she had passed so many happy days, she was per- 
mitted to remain in it, where she lived solitary and almost 
helpless. The few wants of nature were chiefiy suppHed 
from the scanty productions of her little garden, which the 
neighbors would now and then cultivate for her. It was but 
a few days before the time at which these circumstances were 
told me that she was gathering some vegetables for her repast 
when she heard the cottage door which faced the garden sud- 
denly opened. A stranger came out, and seemed to be look- 



THE WIDOW AND EEB SON. 91 

ing eagerly and wildly around. He was dressed in seamen's 
clothes, was emaciated and ghastly pale, and bore the air 
of one broken by sickness and hardships. He saw her, and 
hastened toward her, but his steps were faint and faltering; 
he sank on his knees before her and sobbed like a child. The 
poor woman gained npon him with a vacant and wandering 
eye. '^ Oh, my dear, dear mother! don't yon know your son 
— your poor boy George? " It was, indeed, the wreck of her 
once noble lad; who, shattered by wounds, by sickness, and 
foreign imprisonment, had at length dragged his wasted limbs 
homeward to repose among the scenes of his childhood. 

I will not attempt to detail the particulars of such a meet- 
ing, where sorrow and joy were so completely blended. Still 
he was alive! He was come home! He might yet live to com- 
fort and cherish her old age! Nature, however, was exhausted 
in him; and if anything had been wanting to finish the work 
of fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been 
sufficient. He stretched himself on the pallet on which his 
widowed mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he 
never rose from it again. 

The villagers, when they heard that George Somers had re- 
turned, crowded to see him, offering every comfort and assist- 
ance that their humble means afforded. He was too weak, 
however, to talk — he could only look his thanks. His mother 
was his constant attendant; and he seemed unwilling to be 
helped by any other hand. 

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride 
of manhood; that softens the heart and brings it back to the 
feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in ad- 
vanced life, in sickness and despondency, who that has pined 
on a weary bed in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land, 
but has thought on the mother " that looked on his child- 
hood," that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his help- 
lessness? Oh! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of 
a mother to a son that transcends all other affections of the 
heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness nor daunted 
by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by in- 
gratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his conven- 
ience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; 
she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity; and 
if misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her from 
misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will 
still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; and if all 



92 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to 
him. 

Poor George Somers had known what it was to be in sick- 
ness, and none to soothe — lonely and in prison, and none to 
visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight; 
if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit 
for hours by his bed, watcliing him as he slept. Sometimes 
he would start from a feverish dream, and look anxiously up 
until he saw her bending over him, when he would take her 
hand, lay it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the tranquillity 
of a child. In this way he died. 

My first impulse, on hearing this humble tale of af&iction, 
was to visit the cottage of the mourner and administer pecu- 
niary assistance, and if possible comfort. I found, however, 
on inquiry, that the good feelings of the villagers had 
prompted them to do everything that the case admitted; and, 
as the poor know best how to console each other's sorrows, 
I did not venture to intrude. 

The next Sunday I was at the village church, when, to my 
surprise, I saw the poor old woman tottering down the aisle 
to her accustomed seat on the steps of the altar. 

She had made an effort to put on something like mourning 
for her son; and nothing could be more touching than this 
struggle between pious affection and utter poverty — a black 
riband or so, a faded black handkerchief, and one or two more 
such humble attempts to express by outward signs that grief 
which passes show. When I looked round upon the storied 
monuments, the stately hatchments, the cold marble pomp, 
with which grandeur mourned magnificently over departed 
pride, and turned to this poor widow, bowed down by age 
and sorrow at the altar of her God, and offering up the pray- 
ers and praises of a pious, though a broken, heart, I felt that 
this living monument of real grief was worth them all. 

I related her story to some of the wealthy members of the 
congregation, and they were moved by it. They exerted 
themselves to render her situation more comfortable, and to 
lighten her afflictions. It was, however, but smoothing a 
few steps to the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two 
after, she was missed from her usual seat at church, and be- 
fore I left the neighborhood I heard, with a feeling of satis- 
faction, that she had quietly breathed her last, and had gone 
to rejoin those she loved, in that world where sorrow is never 
known and friends are never parted. 



THE BOARS HEAD TAVERN, EA8T0HEAP. 93 



THE BOAE'S HEAD TAVEEN, EASTCHEAP. 

A SHAKSPEKIAN" KESEAECH. 

A tavern is the rendezvous, the exchange, the staple of good fellows. 
I have heard my great-grandfather tell, how his great-great-grandfather 
should say, that it was an old proverb when his great-grandfather was a 
child, that " it was a good wind that blew a man to the wine." — Mother 
Bomhie. 

It is a pious custoim in some Catholic countries to honor 
the memory of saints by votive lights burnt before their 
pictures. The popularity of a saint, therefore, may be known 
by the number of these offerings. One, perhaps, is left to 
molder in the darkness of his little chapel; another may 
have a solitary lamp to throw its blinking rays athwart his 
effigy; while the whole blaze of adoration is lavished at the 
shrine of some beautiful father of renown. The wealthy dev- 
otee brings his huge luminary of wax; the eager zealot, his 
seven-branched candlestick; and even the mendicant pilgrim 
is by no means satisfied that sufficient light is thrown upon 
the deceased unless he hangs up his little lamp of smoking oil. 
The consequence is., in the eagerness to enlighten, they are 
often apt to obscure; and I have occasionally seen an un- 
lucky saint almost smoked out of countenance by the offi- 
ciousness of his followers. 

In like manner has it fared with the immortal Shakspere. 
Every writer considers it his bounden duty to light up some 
portion of his character or works, and to rescue some merit 
from oblivion. The commentator, opulent in words, pro- 
duces vast tomes of dissertations; the common herd of edi- 
tors send up mists of obscurity from their notes at the bottom 
of each page; and every casual scribbler brings his farthing 
rushlight of eulogy or research to swell the cloud of incense 
and of smoke. 

As I honor all established usages of my brethren of the 
quill, I thought it but proper to contribute my mite of 
homage to the memory of the illustrious bard. I was for 
some time, however, sorely puzzled in what way I should dis- 
charge this duty. I found myself anticipated in every attempt 
at a new reading; every doubtful line had been explained 
a dozen different ways, and perplexed beyond the reach of 
elucidation; and as to fine passages, they^ had all been amply 



94 THE 8KETGE-B00K 

praised by previous admirers; nay, so completely had the 
bard of late beea overlarded with panegyric by a great Ger- 
man critic, that it was difficult now to find even a fa,TiLt that 
had not been argued into a beauty. 

In this perplexity I was one morning turning over his 
pages, when I casually opened upon the comic scenes of 
Henry IV., and was in a moment completely lost in the mad- 
cap revelry of the Boar's Head Tavern. So vividly and natu- 
rally are these scenes of humor depicted, and with such force 
and consistency are the characters sustained, that they become 
mingled up in the mind with the facts and personages of real 
life. To few readers does it occur that these are all ideal 
creations of a poet's brain, and that, in sober truth, no such 
knot of merry roysters ever enlivened the dull neighbor- 
hood of Eastcheap. 

For my part, I love to give myself up to the illusions of 
poetry. A hero of fiction that never existed is just as valu- 
able to me as the hero of history that existed a thousand years 
since; and if I may be excused such an insensibility to the 
common ties of human nature, I would not give up fat Jack 
for half the great men of ancient chronicle. What have the 
heroes of yore done for me, or men like me? They have 
conquered countries of which I do not enjoy an acre; or 
they have gained laurels of which I do not inherit a leaf; or 
they have furnished examples of hair-brained prowess which 
I have neither the opportunity nor the inclination to follow. 
But old Jack Falstaif! — kind Jack Falstaff! — sweet Jack 
Falstaff! has enlarged the boundaries of human enjoyment; 
he has added vast regions of wit and good humor, in which 
the poorest man may revel; and has bequeathed a never- 
failing inheritance of jolly laughter tO' make mankind merrier 
and better to the latest posterity. 

A thought suddenly struck me: " I will make a pilgrimage 
to Eastcheap," said I, closing the book, " and see if the old 
Boards Head Tavern still exists. Who knows but I may light 
upon some legendary traces of Dame Quickly and her guests. 
At any rate, there will be a kindred pleasure in treading the 
halls once vocal with their mirth, to that the toper enjoys in 
smelling to the empty cask once filled with generous wine." 

The resolution was no sooner formed than put in execution. 
I forbear to treat of the various adventures and wonders I 
encountered in my travels, of the haunted regions of Cock 
Lane; of the faded glories of Little Britain^ and the parts 



TME BO AH' 8 HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP, 95 

adjacent; what perils I ran in Cateaton Street and Old Jewry; 
of the renowned Guildhall and its two stunted giants, the 
pride and wonder of the city, and the terror of all unlucky 
urchins; and how I visited London Stone, and struck my stalE 
upon it, in imitation of that arch-rebel. Jack Cade. 

Let it suffice to say that I at length arrived in merry East- 
cheap, that ancient region of wit and wassail, where the very 
names of the streets relished of good cheer, as Pudding Lane 
bears testimony even at the present day. For Eastcheap, says 
old Stow, " was always famous for its convivial doings. The 
cookes cried hot ribbes of beef roasted, pies well baked, and 
other victuals; there was clattering of pewter pots, harpe, 
pipe, and sawtrie." Alas! how sadly is the scene changed 
since the roaring days of Falstafi and old Stow! The madcap 
roysterer has given place to the plodding tradesman; the 
clattering of pots and the sound of " harpe and sawtrie ^^ to 
the din of carts and the accurst dinging of the dustman's bell; 
and no song is heard save, haply, the strain of some siren 
from Billingsgate, chanting the eulogy of deceased mackerel. 

I sought in vain for the ancient abode of Dame Quickly. 
The only relic of it is a boars head, carved in relief stone, 
which formerly served as a sign, but at present is built into 
the parting line of two houses which stand on the site of the 
renowned old tavern. 

For the history of this little empire of good fellowship, I 
was referred to a tallow-chandler's widow opposite, who had 
been bom and brought up on the spot, and was looked up to 
as the indisputable chronicler of the neighborhood. I found 
her seated in a little back parlor, the window of which looked 
out upon a yard about eight feet square, laid out as a flower 
garden; while a glass door opposite afforded a distant peep 
of the street, through a vista of soap and tallow candles; the 
two views, which comprised, in all probability, her prospects 
in life, and the little world in which she had lived, and moved, 
and had her being, for the better part of a century. 

To be versed in the history of Eastcheap, great and little, 
from London Stone even unto the Monument, was, doubtless, 
in her opinion, to be acquainted with the history of the uni- 
verse. Yet, with all this, she possessed the simplicity of true 
wisdom, and that liberal, communicative disposition which 
I have generally remarked in intelligent old ladies knowing 
in the concerns of their neighborhood. 

Her information, however, did not extend far back into 



06 TBE 8KETCB-B00K. 

antiquity. She could throw no light upon the history of the 
Boards Head, from the time that Dame Quickly espoused the 
valiant Pistol, until the great fire of London, when it was 
unfortunately burnt down. It was soon rebuilt, and con- 
tinued to flourish u.nder the old name and sign, until a dying 
landlord, struck with remorse for double scores, bad meas- 
ures, and other iniquities which are incident to the sinful race 
of publicans, endeavored to make his peace with Heaven by 
bequeathing the tavern to St. Michael's Church, Crooked 
Lane, toward the supporting of a chaplain. For some time 
the vestry meetings were regularly held there; but it was 
observed that the old Boar never held up his head under 
church government. He gradually declined, and finally gave 
his last gap about thirty years since. The tavern was then 
turned into shop's; but she informed me that a picture of it 
was still preserved in St. Michael's Church, which stood just 
in the rear. To get a sight of this picture was now my de- 
termination; so, having informed myself of the abode of the 
sexton, I took my leave of the venerable chronicler of East- 
cheap, my visit having doubtless raised greatly her opinion 
of her legendary lore and furnished an important incident in 
the history of her life. 

It cost me some difiiculty and much curious inquiry to 
ferret out the humble hanger-on to the church. I had to 
explore Crooked Lane, and divers little alleys, and elbows, and 
dark passages, with which this old city is perforated, like an 
ancient cheese or a worm-eaten chest of drawers. At length 
I traced him to a corner of a small court, surrounded by lofty 
houses, where the inhabitants enjoy about as much of the face 
of heaven as a community of frogs at the bottom of a well. 
The sexton was a meek, acquiescing little man, of a bowing, 
lowly habit; yet he had a pleasant twinkling in his eye, and 
if encouraged would now and then venture a small pleasantry, 
such as a man of his low estate might venture to make in the 
company of high church wardens and other mighty men of 
the earth. I found him in company with the deputy organist, 
seated apart, like Milton's angels, discoursing, no doubt, on 
high doctrinal points, and settling the affairs of the church 
over a friendly pot of ale; for the lower classes of English 
seldom deliberate on any weighty matter without the assist- 
ance of a cool tankard to clear their understandings. I ar- 
rived at the moment when they had finished their ale and 
their argument, and were about to repair to the church to 



THE BOARS HEAD TAVEBN, EA8TCBEAP. ^1 

put it in order; &o, having made known my -wisheS;, I received 
their gracious permission to accompany them. 

The Church of St. MichaeFs, Crooked Lane, standing a 
short distance from Billingsgate, is enriched with the tombs 
of many fishmongers of renown; and as every profession has 
its galaxy of glory, and its constellation of great men, I pre- 
sume the monument of a mighty fishmonger of the olden time 
is regarded with as much reverence by succeeding generations 
of the craft;, as poets feel on contemplating the tomb of 
Virgil, or soldiers the monument of a Marlborough or 
Turenne. 

I cannot but turn aside, while thus speaking of illustrious 
men, to observe that St. MichaeFs, Crooked Lane, contains 
also the ashes of that doughty champion, William Walworth, 
Knight^ who so manfully clove down the sturdy wight, Wat 
Tyler, in Smithfield; a hero worthy of honorable blazon, as 
almost the only Lord Mayor on record famous for deeds of 
arms; the sovereigns of Cockney being generally renowned as 
the most pacific of all potentates.* 

Adjoining the church, in a small cemetery, immediately 
under the back windows of what was once the Boar's Head, 
stands the tombstone of Eobert Preston, whilome drawer at 
the tavern. It is now nearly a century since this trusty 
drawer of good liquor closed his bustling career, and was thus 
quietly deposited within call of his customers. As I was clear- 

* The following was the ancient inscription on the monument of this 
worthy, which, unhappily, was destroyed in the great conflagration: 

" Hereunder lyth a man of fame, 
William Walworth callyd by name; 
Fishmonger he was in lyfftime here, 
And twise Lord Maior, as in books appeare- 
Who, with courage stout and manly myght, 
Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard's sight. 
For which act done, and trew entent. 
The Kyng made him knyght incontinent; 
And gave him armes, as here you see, 
To declare his fact and chivaldrie: 
He left this lyff the year of our God 
Thirteen hondred fourscore and three odd." 
An error in the foregoing inscription has been corrected by the ven- 
erable Stow. " Whereas," saith he, " it hath been far spread abroad by 
vulgar opinion, that the rebel smitten down so manfully by Sir William 
Walworth, the then worthy Lord Maior, was named Jack Straw, and 
not Wat Tyler, I thought good to reconcile this rash conceived doubt by 
such testimony as I find in ancient and good records. The principal 
leaders, or captains of the commons, were Wat Tyler, as the first manj 
the second was John, or Jack, Straw/' etc, eto.^Btowe's "London," 



98 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

ing away the weeds from his epitaph^ the little sexton drew 
me on one side with a mysterious air^ and informed me^ in a 
low voice;, that once upon a time^ on a dark wintry night, 
when the wind was unruly, howling and whistling, banging 
about doors and windows and twirling weathercocks, so that 
the living were frightened out of their beds, and even the 
dead could not sleep quietly in their graves, the ghost of 
honest Preston, which happened to be airing itself in the 
churchyard, was attracted by the well-known call of " waiter '' 
from the Boar's Head, and made its sudden appearance in the 
midst of a roaring club, just as the parish clerk was singing a 
stave from the " Mirrie Garland of Captain Death ''; to the 
discomfiture of sundry trainband captains, and the conver- 
version of an infidel attorney, who became a zealous Christian 
on the spot, and was never known to twist the truth after- 
ward, except in the way of business. 

I beg it may be remembered, that I do not pledge myself for 
the authenticity of this anecdote, though it is well known that 
the churchyards and bye-comers of this old metropolis are 
very much infested with the perturbed spirits; and everyone 
must have heard of the Cock Lane ghost, and the apparition 
that guards the regalia in the Tower, which has frightened 
so many bold sentinels almost out of their wits. 

Be all this as it may, this Eobert Preston seems to have 
been a worthy successor to the nimble-tongued Francis, who 
attended upon the revels of Prince Hal; to have been equally 
prompt with his " anon, anon, sir," and to have transcended 
his predecessor in honesty; for Falstaff, the veracity of whose 
taste no man will venture to impeach, flatly accuses Francis 
of putting lime in his sack; whereas, honest Preston's epi- 
taph lauds him for the sobriety of his conduct, the soundness 
of his wine, and the fairness of his measure.* The worthy 

* As this inscription is rife with excellent morality, I transcribe it for 
the admonition of delinquent tapsters. It is, no doubt, the production 
of some choice spirit who once frequented the Boar's Head: 

" Bacchus, to give the toping world surprise, 
Produced one sober son, and here he lies. 
Though rear'd among full hogsheads, he defied 
The charms of wine, and every one beside. 
O reader, if to justice thou'rt inclined. 
Keep honest Preston daily in thy mind. 
He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots, 
Had sundry virtues that excused his faults. 
You that on Bacchus have the like dependence. 
Pray copy Bob, in measure and attendance." 



THE BOAR 8 HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP. 99 

dignitaries of the church, however, did not appear much cap- 
tivated by the sober virtues of the tapster; the deputy organ- 
ist, who had a moist look out of the eye, made some shrewd 
remark on the abstemiousness of a man brought up among 
full hogsheads; and the httle sexton corroborated his opinion 
by a significant wink and a dubious shake of the head. 

Thus far my researches, though they threw much light on 
the history of tapsters, fishmongers, and Lord Mayors, yet 
disappointed me in the great object of my quest, the picture 
of the Boar's Head Tavern. No such painting was to be 
found in the Church of St. Michael's. '^ Marry and amen! " 
said I, "here endeth my research!" So I was giving the 
matter up, with the air of a baffled antiquary, when my friend 
the sexton, perceiving me to be curious in everything rela- 
tive to the old tavern, offered to show me the choice vessels 
of the vestry, which had been handed down from remote 
times, when the parish meetings were held at the Boar's Head. 
These were deposited in the parish clubroom, which had 
been transferred, on the decline of the ancient establishment, 
to a tavern in the neighborhood. 

A few steps brought us to the house, which stands No. 12 
Mile Lane, bearing the title of The Mason's Arms, and is kept 
by Master Edward Honeyball, the " bully-rock " of the estab- 
lishment. It is one of those little taverns, which abound in 
the heart of the city, and form the center of gossip and in- 
telligence of the neighborhood. We entered the barroom, 
which was narrow and darkling; for in these close lanes but 
few rays of reflected light are enabled to struggle down to 
the inhabitants, whose broad day is at best but a tolerable 
twilight. The room was partitioned into boxes, each contain- 
ing a table spread with a clean white cloth, ready for dinner. 
This showed that the guests were of the good old stamp, and 
divided their day equally, for it was just one o'clock. At the 
lower end of the room was a clear coal fire, before which a 
breast of lamb was roasting. A row of bright brass candle- 
sticks and pewter mugs glistened along the mantelpiece, and 
an old-fashioned clock ticked in one comer. There was some- 
thing primitive in this medley of kitchen, parlor, and hall 
that carried me back to earlier times, and pleased me. The 
place, indeed, was humble, but everything had that look of 
order and neatness which bespeaks the superintendence of a 
notable English housewife. A group of amphibious-looking 
beings, who might be either fishermen or sailors, were regal- 



100 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

ing themselves in one of the boxes. As I was a visitor of 
rather higher pretensions, I was ushered into a little mis- 
shapen back room, having at least nine comers. It was 
lighted by a skylight, furnished with antique leathern chairs, 
and ornamented with the portrait of a fat pig. It was evi- 
dently appropriated to particular customers^, and I found a 
shabby gentleman in a red nose and oil-cloth hat seated in 
one corner, meditating on a half-empty pot of porter. 

The old sexton had taken the landlady aside, and with ^n 
air of profound importance imparted to her my errand. 
Dame Honeyball was a likely, plump, bustling little woman, 
and no bad substitute for that paragon of hostesses. Dame 
Quickly. She seemed delighted with an opportunity to 
oblige; and, hurrying upstairs to the archives of her house, 
where the precious vessels of the parish club were deposited, 
she returned, smiling and courtesying, with them in her 
hands. 

The first she presented me was a japanned iron tobacco 
box of gigantic size, out of which, I was told, the vestry had 
smoked at their stated meetings, since time immemorial; and 
which was never suffered to be profaned by vulgar hands, or 
used on common occasions. I received it with becoming rev- 
erence; but what was my delight, at beholding on its cover 
the identical painting of which I was in quest! There was 
displayed the outside of the Boards Head Tavern, and before 
the door was to be seen the whole convivial group at table, 
in full revel, pictured with that wonderful fidelity and force 
with which the portraits of renowned generals and commo- 
dores are illustrated on tobacco boxes, for the benefit of pos- 
terity. Lest, however, there should be any mistake, the cun- 
ning limner had warily inscribed the names of Prince Hal and 
Falstaff on the bottoms of their chairs. 

On the inside of the cover was an inscription, nearly ob- 
literated, recording that this box was the gift of Sir Eichard 
Gore, for the use of the vestry meetings at the Boar's Head 
Tavern, and that it was " repaired and beautified by his suc- 
cessor, Mr. John Packard, 1767." Such is a faithful descrip- 
tion of this august and venerable relic, and I question 
whether the learned Scriblerius contemplated his Eoman 
shield, or the Knights of the Pound Table the long-sought 
sangreal, with more exultation. 

While I was meditating on it with enraptured gaze. Dame 
Honeyball, wliQ was highly gratified by the interest it excitedi 



THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, EASTCHEAP. 101 

put in my hands a drinking cup or gohlet, whicli also belonged 
to the vestry^ and was descended from the old Boar's Head. 
It bore the inscription of having been the gift of Francis 
Wythers, Knight, and was held, she told me, in exceeding 
great value, being considered very " antyke." This last 
opinion was strengthened by the shabby gentleman with the 
red nose and oil-cloth hat, and whom I strongly suspected of 
being a lineal descendant from the valiant Bardolph. He 
suddenly aroused from his meditation on the pot of porter, 
and, casting a knowing look at the goblet, exclaimed: " Ay, 
ay! the head don't ache now that made that there article." 

The great importance attached to this memento of ancient 
revelry by modern churchwardens, at first puzzled me; but 
there is nothing sharpens the apprehension so much as anti- 
quarian research; for I immediately perceived that tliis could 
be no other than the identical " parcel-gilt goblet " on which 
Falstaff made his loving, but faithless, vow to Dame Quickly; 
and which would, of course, be treasured up with care among 
the regalia of her domains, as a testimony of that solemn 
contract.* 

Mine hostess, indeed, gave me a long history how the goblet 
had been handed down from generation to generation. She 
also entertained me with many particulars concerning the 
worthy vestrymen who have seated themselves thus quietly on 
the stools of the ancient roysters of Eastcheap, and, like so 
many commentators, utter clouds of smoke in honor of 
Shakspere. These I forbear to relate, lest my readers should 
not be as curious in these matters as myself. Suffice it to say, 
the neighbors, one and all, about Eastcheap, believe that Fal- 
stafi and his merry crew actually lived and reveled there. 
Nay, there are several legendary anecdotes concerning him 
still extant among the oldest frequenters of the Mason's 
Arms, which they gave as transmitted down from their fore- 
fathers; and Mr. M'Kash, an Irish hair dresser, whose shop 
stands on the site of the old Boar's Head, has several dry jokes 
of Fat Jack's not laid down in the books, with which he makes 
his customers ready to die of laughter. 

* Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my 
Dolphin Chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday 
in Whitsun-week, when the Prince broke thy head for likening his 
father to a singing man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I 
was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady, thy wife. 
Canst thou deny it? — Henry IV., part 3. 



102 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

I now turned to my friend the sexton to make some farther 
inquiries, but I found him sunk in pensive meditation. His 
head had declined a little on one side; a deep sigh heaved 
from the very bottom of his stomach, and, though I could not 
see a tear trembling in liis eye, yet a moisture was evidently 
stealing from a corner of his mouth. I followed the direc- 
tion of his eye through the door which stood open, and found 
it fixed wistfully on the savory breast of lamb, roasting in 
dripping richness before the fire. 

I now called to mind, that in the eagerness of my recondite 
investigation, I was keeping the poor man from his dinner. 
My bowels yearned with sympathy, and putting in his hand 
a small token of my gratitude and good will, I departed with 
a hearty benediction on him. Dame Honeyball, and the parish 
club of Crooked Lane — not forgetting my shabby, but sen- 
tentious friend, in the oilcloth hat and copper nose. 

Thus have I given a " tedious brief " account of this inter- 
esting research; for which, if it prove too short and un- 
satisfactory, I can only plead my inexperience in this branch 
of literature, so deservedly popular at the present day. I am 
aware that a more skillful illustrator of the immortal bard 
would have swelled the materials I have touched upon, to a 
good merchantable bulk, comprising the biographies of 
William Walworth, Jack Straw, and Eobert Preston; some 
notice of the eminent fishmongers of St. Michael's; the history 
of Eastcheap, great and little; private anecdotes of Dame 
Honeyball and her pretty daughter, whom I have not even 
mentioned: to say nothing of a damsel tending the breast of 
lamb (and whom, by the way, I remarked to be a comely lass, 
with a neat foot and ankle); the whole enlivened by the riots 
of Wat Tyler, and illuminated by the great fire of London. 

All this I leave as a rich mine, to be worked by future 
commentators; nor do I despair of seeing the tobacco box, 
and the " parcel-gilt goblet," which I have thus brought to 
light, the subject of future engravings, and almost as fruitful 
of voluminous dissertations and disputes as the shield of 
Achilles, or the far-famed Portland vase. 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITEBATUEE, 103 

THE MUTABILITY OF LITEEATUEE. 

A COLLOQUY IN WESTMIITSTEE ABBEY. 

I know that all beneath the moon decays, 
And what by mortals in this world is wrought 
In time's great periods shall return to nought, 

I know that all the muses' heavenly layes, 
With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, 
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought, 

That there is nothing lighter than mere praise. 

— Drummond of Hawthoknden. 

Theke axe certain half dreaming moods of mind, in which 
we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some 
quiet haunt, where we may indulge our reveries and build 
our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood I was loitering 
about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying 
that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify 
with the name of reflection; when suddenly an irruption of 
madcap boys from Westminster School, playing at football, 
broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making 
the vaulted passages and moldering tombs echo with their 
merriment. I sought to take refuge from their noise by 
penetrating still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and 
applied to one of the vergers for admission to the library. 
He conducted me through a portal rich with the crumbling 
sculpture of former ages, which opened upon a gloomy pas- 
sage leading to the Chapter-house and the chamber in which 
the Doomsday Book is deposited. Just within the passage is 
a small door on the left. To this the verger applied a key; 
it was double locked, and opened with some difficulty, as if 
seldom used. We now ascended a dark, narrow staircase, and 
passing through a second door, entered the library. 

I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported 
by massive joists of old English oak. It was soberly lighted 
by a row of Gothic windows at a considerable height from 
the floor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of 
the cloisters. An ancient picture of some reverend dig- 
nitary of the church in his robes hung over the fireplace. 
Around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, ar- 
ranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of 
old polemical writers, and were much more worn bj time 



104 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

than use. In the center of the library was a solitary table, 
with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and 
a few pens parched by long disuse. The place seemed fitted 
for quiet study and profound meditation. It was buried 
deep among the massive walls of the abbey, and shut up from 
the tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then the 
shouts of the schoolboys faintly swelling from the cloisters, 
and the sound of a bell tolling for prayers, that echoed 
soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By degrees the shouts 
of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died 
away. The bell ceased to toll, and a profound silence reigned 
through the dusky hall. 

I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound 
in parchment, with brass clasps, and seated myself at the 
table in a venerable elbow chair. Instead of reading, how- 
ever, I was beguiled by the solemn monastic air and lifeless 
quiet of the place, into a train of musing. As I looked 
around upon the old volumes in their moldering covers, thus 
ranged on the shelves, and apparently never disturbed in their 
repose, I could not but consider the library a kind of literary 
catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are piously en- 
tombed, and left to blacken and molder in dusty oblivion. 

How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now 
thrust aside with such indifference, cost some aching head — 
how many weary du^s! how many sleepless nights! How 
have their authors buried themselves in the solitude of cells 
and cloisters; shut themselves up from the face of man, and 
the still more blessed face of nature; and devoted them- 
selves to painful research and intense reflection! And all 
for what? to occupy an inch of dusty shelf — to have the titles 
of their works read now and then in a future age by some 
drowsy churchman, or casual straggler like myself; and in 
another age to be lost even to remembrance. Such is the 
amount of this boasted immortality. A mere temporary 
rumor, a local sound; like the tone of that bell which has 
just tolled among these towers, filling the ear for a moment 
— lingering transiently in echo — and then passing away, like 
a thing that was not! 

While I sat half-murmuring, half-meditating these un- 
profitable speculations, with my head resting on my hand, 
I was thrumming with the other hand upon the quarto, until 
I accidentally loosened the clasps; when, to my utter aston- 
ishment, the little book gave two or three yawns, like one 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 105 

awaking from a deep sleep; then a husky hem, and at length 
began to talk. At first its voice was very hoarse and broken, 
being much troubled by a cobweb which some studious 
spider had woven across it; and having probably contracted 
a cold from long exposure to the chills and damps of the 
abbey. In a short time, however, it became more distinct, 
and I soon found it an exceedingly fluent conversable little 
tome. Its language, to be sure, was rather quaint and obso- 
lete, and its pronunciation what in the present day would 
be deemed barbarous; but I shall endeavor, as far as I am 
able, to render it in modern parlance. 

It began with railings about the neglect of the world — 
about merit being suffered to languish in obscurity, and other 
such commonplace topics of literary repining, and complained 
bitterly that it had not been opened for more than two cen- 
turies; — ^that the Dean only looked now and then into the 
library, sometimes took down a volume or two, trifled with 
them for a few moments, and then returned them to their 
shelves. 

^^What a plague do they mean,'^ said the little quarto, 
which I began to perceive was somewhat choleric, " what 
a plague do they mean by keeping several thousand volumes 
of us shut up here and watched by a set of old vergers, like 
so many beauties in a harem, merely to be looked at now 
and then by the Dean? Books were written to give pleasure 
and to be enjoyed; and I would have a rule passed that the 
Dean should pay each of us a visit at least once a year; or if 
he is not equal to the task, let them once in a while turn loose 
the whole school of Westminster among us, that at any rate 
we may now and then have an airing." 

" Softly, my worthy friend," replied I, " you are not aware 
how much better you are off than most books of your gen- 
eration. By being stored away in this ancient library you 
are like the treasured remains of those saints and monarchs 
which lie enshrined in the adjoining chapels; while the re- 
mains of their cotemporary mortals, left to the ordinary 
course of nature, have long since returned to dust." 

'^ Sir," said the little tome, ruffling his leaves and looking 
big, " I was written for all the world, not for the bookworms 
of an abbey. I was intended to circulate from hand to hand, 
like other great contemporary works; but here have I been 
clasped up for more than two centuries, and might have 
silently fallen a prey to these worms that are playing the 



/ 



/ 



106 THE SEETCB-BOOK. i 

very vengeance with my intestines, if you had not by chance 
given me an opportunity of uttering a few last words before 
I go to pieces." 

" My good friend/' rejoined I, ^' had you been left to the 
circulation of which you speak, you would long ere this have 
been no more. To judge from your physiognomy, you are 
now well stricken in years; very few of your contemporaries 
can be at present in existence; and those few owe their 
longevity to being immured like yourself in old libraries; 
which, suffer me to add, instead of likening to harems, you 
might more properly and gratefully have compared to those 
infirmaries attached to religious establishments for the bene- 
fit of the old and decrepit, and where, by quiet fostering and 
no employment, they often endure to an amazingly good-for- 
nothing old age. You talk of your contemporaries as if in 
circulation — where do we meet with their works? — what do 
we hear of Eobert Groteste of Lincoln? No one could have 
toiled harder than he for immortality. He is said to have 
written nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were, 
a pyramid of books to perpetuate his name: but, alas! the 
pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few fragments are 
scattered in various libraries, where they are scarcely dis- 
turbed even by the antiquarian. What do we hear of 
Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian, antiquary, philosopher, 
theologian, and poet? He declined two bishoprics, that he 
might shut himself up and write for posterity; but posterity 
never inquires after his labors. What of Henry of Hunting- 
don, who, besides a learned history of England, wrote a 
treatise on the contempt of the world, which the world has 
revenged by forgetting him? What is quoted of Joseph of 
Exeter, styled the miracle of his age in classical composition? 
Of his three great heroic poems, one is lost forever, excepting 
a mere fragment; the others are known only to a few of the 
curious in literature; and as to his love verses and epigrams, 
they have entirely disappeared. What is in current use of 
John Wallis, the Franciscan, who acquired the name of the 
tree of life? — of William of Malmsbury; of Simeon of Dur- 
ham; of Benedict of Peterborough; of John Hanvill of St. 
Albans; of '' 

" Prithee, friend,'^ cried the quarto in a testy tone, '^ how 
old do you think me? You are talking of authors that lived 
long before my time, and wrote either in Latin or French, 
§0 that they in a manner expatriated themselves^ and deserved 



THE MUTABILITT OF LITEMATXIBB. lOt 

to be forgotten;* but I, sir, was ushered into the world from 
the press of the renowned Wynkyn de Worde. I was written 
in my own native tongue, at a time when the language had 
become fixed; and, indeed, I was considered a model of pure 
and elegant English." 

[I should observe that these remarks were couched in such 
intolerably antiquated terms, that I have had infinite diffi- 
culty in rendering them into modern phraseology.] 

" I cry you mercy," said I, " for mistaking your age; but 
it matters little; almost all the writers of yaur time have like- 
wise passed into forgetfulness; and De Worde's publications 
are mere literary rarities among book-collectors. The purity 
and stability of language, too, on which you found your 
claims to perpetuity, have been the fallacious dependence of 
authors of every age, even back to the times of the worthy 
Eobert of Grloucester, who wrote his history in rhymes of 
mongrel Saxon.f Even now, many talk of Spenser's * well 
of pure English undefiled,' as if the language ever sprang 
from a well or fountain-head, and was not rather a mere 
confluence of various tongues, perpetually subject to changes 
and intermixtures. It is this which has made English litera- 
ture so extremely mutable, and the reputation built upon it 
so fleeting. Unless thought can be committed to something 
more permanent and unchangeable than such a medium, 
even thought must share the fate of everything else, ajid fall 
into decay. This should serve as a check upon the vanity 
and exultation of the most popular writer. He finds the 
language in which he has embarked his fame gradually alter- 
ing, and subject to the dilapidations of time and the caprice 
of fashion. He looks back, and beholds the early authors of 
his country, once the favorites of their day, supplanted by 

* In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes had great delyte to 
endyte, and have many noble things fulfilde, but certes there ben some 
that speaken their poisye in French, of which speche the Frenchmen 
have as good a fantasy e as we have in hearing of Frenchmen's Englishe. 
— Chancer' 8 " Testament of Love." 

f Holinshed, in his "Chronicle," observes: "Afterwards, also, by 
diligent travell of Geffry Chaucer and John Gowrie, in the time of 
Richard the Second, and after them of John Scogan and John Lydgate, 
monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an excellent passe, not- 
withstanding that it never came unto the type of perfection until the 
time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John 
Fox, and sundrie learned and excellent writers, have fully accom- 
plished the ornature of the same, to their great praise and immortal 
commendation." 



108 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

modem writers: a few short ages have covered them with 
obscurity, and their merits can only be rehshed by the quaint 
taste of the bookworm. And such, he anticipates, will be 
the fate of his own work, which, however it may be admired 
in its day, and held up as a model of purity, will, in the 
course of years, grow antiquated and obsolete, until it shall 
become almost as unintelligible in its native land as an 
Egyptian obelisk, or one of those Runic inscriptions, said to 
exist in the deserts of Tartary. I declare," added I, with 
some emotion, " when I contemplate a modern library filled 
with new works in all the bravery of rich gilding and bind- 
ing, I feel disposed to sit down and weep; like the good 
Xerxes, when he surveyed his army, pranked out in all the 
splendor of military array, and reflected that in one hundred 
years not one of them would be in existence! " 

"Ah!" said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, "I see 
how it is; these modem scribblers have superseded all the 
good old authors. I suppose nothing is read nowadays but 
Sir Philip Sidney's ^ Arcadia,' Sackville's stately plays and 
' Mirror for Magistrates,' or the fine-spun euphuisms of the 
' unparalleled John Lyly.' " 

" There you are again mistaken," said I; " the writers 
whom you suppose in vogue, because they happened to be so 
when you were last in circulation, have long since had their 
day. Sir Philip Sidney's ^ Arcadia,' the immortality of 
which was so fondly predicted by his admirers,* and which, 
in truth, was full of noble thoug:hts, delicate images, and 
graceful turns of language, is now scarcely ever mentioned. 
Sackville has strutted into obscurity; and even Lyly, though 
his writings were once the delight of a court, and apparently 
perpetuated by a proverb, is now scarcely known even by 
name. A whole crowd of authors who wrote and wrangled 
at the time, have likewise gone down with all their writings 
and their controversies. Wave after wave of succeeding 
literature has rolled over them, until they are buried so deep, 
that it is only now and then that some industrious diver after 

* Live ever sweete booke; tlie simple image of his gentle witt, and the 
golden pillar of his noble courage; and ever notify unto the world that 
thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the breath of the muses, the 
honey bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte, the pith of morale 
and the intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in the field, the tongue 
of Suada in the chamber, the spirite of Practise in esse, and the paragon of 
excellency in print. — Harvey's * ' Pierce's Supererogation,'* 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 109 

fragments of antiqnity brings up a specimen for the gratifica- 
tion of the curious. 

" For my part/' I continued, " I consider this mutability 
of language a wise precaution of Providence for the benefit 
of the world at large, and of authors in particular. To reason 
from analogy: we daily behold the varied and beautiful tribes 
of vegetables springing up, flourishing, adorning the fields 
for a short time, and then fading into dust, to make way for 
their successors. Were not this the case, the fecundity of 
nature would be a grievance instead of a blessing: the earth 
would groan with rank and excessive vegetation, and its sur- 
face become a tangled wilderness. In like manner, the works 
of genius and learning decline and make way for subsequent 
productions. Language gradually varies, and with it fade 
away the writings of authors who have flourished their 
allotted time; otherwise the creative powers of genius would 
overstock the world, and the mind would be completely be- 
wildered in the endless mazes of literature. Formerly there 
were some restraints on this excessive multiplication: works 
had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and labori- 
ous operation; they were written either on parchment, which 
was expensive, so that one work was often erased to make 
way for another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and ex- 
tremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofita- 
ble crsSt, pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude 
of their cloisters. The accumulation of manuscripts was slow 
and costly, and confined almost entirely to monasteries. To 
these circumstances it may, in some measure, be owing that 
we have not been inundated by the intellect of antiquity; that 
the fountains of thoughts have not been broken up, and 
modern genius drowned in the deluge. But the inventions 
of paper and the press have put an end to all these restraints: 
they have made everyone a writer, and enabled every mind to 
pour itself into print and diffuse itself over the whole intel- 
lectual world. The consequences are alarming. The stream 
of literature has swollen into a torrent — augmented into a 
river — expanded into a sea. A few centuries since, five or 
six hundred manuscripts constituted a great library; but what 
would you say to libraries, such as actually exist, containing 
three or four hundred thousand volumes; legions of authors 
at the same time busy; and a press going on with fearfully 
increasing activity, to double and quadruple the number? 
Unless sop© unforeseen mortality should Ibreak out among tha 



110 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

progeny of the Muse, now that she has become so prolific, 
I tremble for posterity. I fear the mere fluctuation of lan- 
guage will not be sufficient. Criticism may do much; it in- 
creases with the increase of literature, and resembles one of 
those salutary checks on population spoken of by economists. 
All possible encouragement, therefore, should be given to 
the growth of critics, good or bad. But I fear all will be in 
vain; let criticism do what it may, writers will write, printers 
will print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with 
good books. It will soon be the employment of a lifetime 
merely to learn their names. Many a man of passable in- 
formation at the present day reads scarcely anything but 
reviews, and before long a man of erudition will be little 
better than a mere walking catalogue." 

" My very good sir," said the little quarto, yawning most 
drearily in my face, " excuse my interrupting you, but I per- 
ceive you are rather given to prose. I would ask the fate of 
an author who was making some noise just as I left the 
world. His reputation, however, was considered quite tem- 
porary. The learned shook their heads at him, for he was 
a poor, half-educated varlet, that knew little of Latin and 
nothing of Greek, and had been obliged to run the country 
for deer-stealing. I think his name was Shakspere. I pre- 
sume he soon sunk into oblivion." 

" On the contrary," said I, " it is owing to that very man 
that the literature of his period has experienced a duration 
beyond the ordinary term of English literature. There arise 
authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability 
of language, because they have rooted themselves in the un- 
changing principles of human nature. They are like gigan- 
tic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream, 
which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the 
mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the 
earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away 
by the overflowing current, and hold up many a neighbor- 
ing plant, and, perhaps, worthless weed, to perpetuity. Such 
is the case with Shakspere, whom we behold, defying the 
encroachments of time, retaining in modern use the language 
and literature of his day, and giving duration to many an 
indifferent author merely from having flourished in his vicin- 
ity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually assuming the 
tint of age, and his whole form is overrun by a profusion of 
commentators, who, like clambering vines and creepers^ 
almost bury the noble plant that upholds them/^ 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITEBATUEE. HI 

Here the little qnarto began to heave his sides and chuckle, 
\mtil at length he broke out into a plethoric fit of laughter 
that had well-nigh choked him by reason of his excessive 
corpulency. "Mighty well!" cried he, as soon as he could 
recover breath, "might well! and so you would persuade me 
that the literature of an age is to be perpetuated by a vaga- 
bond deer-stealer! by a man without learning! by a poet! for- 
sooth — a poet! " And here he wheezed forth another fit of 
laughter. 

I confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rudeness, 
which, however, I pardoned on account of his having flour- 
ished in a less polished age. I determined, nevertheless, not 
to give up my point. 

" Yes," resumed I positively, " a poet; for of all writers 
he has the best chance of immortality. Others may write 
from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart 
will always understand him. He is the faithful portrayer 
of Nature, whose features are always the same, and always 
interesting. Prose writers are voluminous and unwieldy; 
their pages crowded with commonplaces, and their thoughts 
expanded into tediousness. But with the true poet every- 
thing is terse, touching, or brilliant. He gives the choicest 
thoughts in the choicest language. He illustrates them by 
everything that he sees most striking in nature and art. He 
enriches them by pictures of human life, such as it is, passing 
before him. His writings, therefore, contain the spirit, the 
aroma, if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. 
They are caskets which inclose within a small compass the 
wealth of the language — its family jewels, which are thus 
transmitted in a portable form to posterity. The setting may 
occasionally be antiquated, and require now and then to be 
renewed, as in the case of Chaucer; but the brilliancy and 
intrinsic value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look 
back over the long reach of literary history. What vast val- 
leys of dullness, filled mth monkish legends and academical 
controversies! What bogs of theological speculations! What 
dreary wastes of metaphysics! Here and there only do we 
behold the heaven-illumined bards, elevated like beacons on 
their widely separated heights, to transmit the pure light of 
poetical intelligence from age to age." * 

* Thorow earth, and waters deepe, 

The pen by skill doth passe: 
And featly nyps the worldes abi:K9e, 
And shoes us la '<^ jg^lasse, 



112 THE 8EETGH-B00K, 

I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon the 
poets of the daj^ when the sudden opening of the door caused 
me to turn my head. It was the verger, who came to inform 
me that it was time to close the library. I sought to have a 
parting word with the quarto, but the worthy little tome was 
silent; the clasps were closed; and it looked perfectly uncon- 
scious of all that had passed. I have been to the library two 
or three times since^ and have endeavored to draw ft into 
further conversation, but in vain; and whether all this ram- 
bling colloquy actually took place, or whether it was another 
of those odd day-dreams to which I am subject, I have never, 
to this moment, been able to discover. 

RUEAL FUNERALS. 

Here's a few flowers! but ahout midnight more: 
The herbs that have on them cold dew o' the night 

Are strewings fitt'st for graves 

You were as flowers now withered: even so 
These herb'lets shall, which we upon you strow. 

— Gymheline. 

Among the beautiful and simple-hearted customs of rural 
life which still linger in some parts of England, are those 
of strewing flowers before the funerals and planting them at 
the graves of departed friends. These, it is said, are the 
remains of some of the rites of the primitive church; but they 
are of still higher antiquity, having been observed among 
the Greeks and Romans, and frequently mentioned by their 
writers, and were, no doubt, the spontaneous tributes of un- 
lettered affection, originating long before art had tasked itself 
to modulate sorrow into song, or story it on the monument. 
They are now only to be met with in the most distant and 
retired places of the kingdom, where fashion and innovation 
have not been able to throng in, and trample out all the curi- 
ous and interesting traces of the olden time. 

In Glamorganshire, we are told, the bed whereon the corpse 

The vertu and the vice 

Of every wight alyve; 
The honey combe that bee doth make, 

Is not so sweet in hyve, 
As are the golden leves 

That drops from poet's head; 
Which doth surmount our common talke, 

As fane as dross doth lead. 

— CTiurchyard. 



RURAL FUNERALS. 113 

lies is covered with flowers, a custom alluded to in one of 
the wild and plaintive ditties of Opheha: 

*' White his shroud as the mountain snow. 
Larded all with sweet flowers; 
Which bewept to the grave did go, 
With true love showers." 

There is also a most delicate and beautiful rite observed in 
some of the remote villages of the south, at the funeral of 
a female who has died young and unmarried. A chaplet of 
white flowers is borne before the corpse by a young girl, near- 
est in age, size, and resemblance, and is afterward hung up 
in the church over the acc^istomed seat of the deceased. 
These chaplets are sometimes made of white paper, in imita- 
tion of flowers, and inside of them is generally a pair of white 
gloves. They are intended as emblems of the purity of the 
deceased, and the crown of glory which she has received in 
heaven. 

In some parts of the country, also, the dead are carried to 
the grave with the singing of psalms and hymns; a kind of 
triumph, " to show,^' says Bourne, " that they have finished 
their course with joy, and are become conquerors." This, 
I am informed, is observed in some of the northern counties, 
particularly in ^N'orthumberland, and it has a pleasing, though 
melancholy effect, to hear, of a still evening, in some lonely 
country scene, the mournful melody of a funeral dirge swell- 
ing from a distance, and to see the train slowly moving along 
the landscape. 

Thus, thus, and thus we compass round 
Thy harmless and unhaunted ground, 
And as we sing thy dirge, we will 

The Daffodil 
And other flowers lay upon 
The altar of our love, thy stone. 

— Herrick. 

There is also a solemn respect paid by the traveler to the 
passing funeral in these sequestered places; for such specta- 
cles, occurring among the quiet abodes of nature, sink deep 
into the soul. As the mourning train approaches, he pauses, 
uncovered, to let it go by; he then follows silently in the 
rear; sometimes quite to the grave, at other times for a few 
hundred yards, and having paid this tribute of respect to the 
deceased, turns and resumes his journey. 



114 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

The rich vein of melancholy which runs through the Eng- 
lish character^ and gives it some of its most touching and 
ennobling graces, is finely evidenced in these pathetic cus- 
toms and in the solicitude shown by the common people for 
an honored and a peaceful grave. The humblest peasant, 
whatever may be his lowly lot while living, is anxious that 
some little respect may be paid to his remains. Sir Thomas 
Overbury, describing the ^'^faire and happy milkmaid," ob- 
serves, " thus lives she, and all her care is, that she may die 
in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stucke upon her 
winding-sheet." The poets, too, who always breathe the 
feeling of a nation, continually advert to this fond solicitude 
about the grave. In " The Maid's Tragedy," by Beaumont 
and Fletcher, there is a beautiful instance of the kind, describ- 
ing the capricious melancholy of a broken-hearted girl. 

" When she sees a bank 
Stuck full of flowers, she, with a sigh, will tell 
Her servants what a pretty place it were 
To bury lovers in; and make her maids 
Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse." 

The custom of decorating graves was once universally 
prevalent: osiers were carefully bent over them to keep the 
turf uninjured, and about them were planted evergreens and 
flowers. " We adorn their graves," says Evelyn, in his 
" Sylva," " with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems 
of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy 
Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots being buried 
in dishonor, rise again in glory." This usage has now be- 
come extremely rare in England; but it may still be met with 
in the churchyards of retired villages, among the Welsh 
mountains; and I recollect an instance of it at the small town 
of Euthven, which lies at the head of the beautiful vale of 
Clewyd. I have been told also by a friend, who was present 
at the funeral of a young girl in Glamorganshire, that the 
female attendants had their aprons full of flowers, which, as 
soon as the body was interred, they stuck about the grave. 

He noticed several graves which had been decorated in the 
same manner. As the flowers had been merely stuck in the 
ground, and not planted, they had soon withered, and might 
be seen in various states of decay; some drooping, others 
quite perished. They were afterward to be supplanted by 
holly, rosemary, and other evergreens; which on some graves 



BUBAL FUNE1SAL8. 116 

had grown to great luxuriaiice, and overshadowed the 
tombstones. 

There was formerly a melancholy fancifnlness in the ar- 
rangement of these rustic offerings that had something in it 
truly poetical. The rose was sometimes blended with the 
lily, to form a general emblem of frail mortality. " This 
sweet flower," said Evelyn, " borne on a branch set with 
thorns, and accompanied with the lily, are natural hiero- 
glyphics of our fugitive, umbratilc', anxious, and transitory 
life, which, making so fair a show for a time, is not yet with- 
out its thorns and crosses." The nature and color of the 
flowers, and of the ribands with which they were tied, had 
often a particular reference to the qualities or story of the 
deceased, or were expressive of the feelings of the mourner. 
In an old poem, entitled " Corydon's Doleful Knell," a lover 
specifies the decorations he intends to use: 

" A garland shall be framed 
By Art and Nature's skill, 
Of sundry-colored flowers, 
In token of good will. 

*' And sundry-colored ribands 
On it I will bestow; 
But chiefly blacke and yellowe 
With her to grave shall go. 

" ril deck her tomb with flowers 
The rarest ever seen; 
And with my tears as showers 
I'll keep them fresh and green." 

The white rose, we are told, was planted at the grave of 
a virgin; her chaplet was tied with white ribands, in token 
of her spotless innocence; though sometimes black ribands 
were intermingled, to bespeak the grief of the survivors. The 
red rose was occasionally used, in remembrance of such as 
had been remarkable for benevolence; but roses in general 
were appropriated to the graves of lovers. Evelyn tells us 
that the custom was not altogether extinct in his time, near 
his dwelling in the county of Surrey, " where the maidens 
yearly planted and decked the graves of their defunct sweet- 
hearts with rose-bushes." And Camden likewise remarks, 
in his " Britannia "; " Here is also a certain custom observed 
timQ out o| mind^ of planting rose-trees upoii tjie graved; 



116 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

especially by the young men and maids who have lost their 
loves; so that this churchyard is now full of them." 

When the deceased had been unhappy in their loves, em- 
blems of a more gloomy character were used, such as the yew 
and cypress; and if flowers were strewn, they were of the 
most melancholy colors. Thus, in poems by Thomas Stan- 
ley, Esq. (published in 1651), is the following stanza: 

" Yet strew 
Upon my dismal grave 
Such offerings as you have, 

Forsaken cypresse and ye we; 
For kinder flowers can take no birth 
Or growth from such unhappy earth." 

In " The Maid's Tragedy," a pathetic little air is intro- 
duced, illustrative of this mode of decorating the funerals of 
females who have been disappointed in love. 

" Lay a garland on my hearse 

Of the dismal yew, 
Maidens willow iDranches wear, 

Say I died true. 
My love was false, but I was firm, 

From my hour of birth, 
Upon my buried body lie 

Lightly, gentle earth." 

The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and 
elevate the mind; and we have a proof of it in the purity of 
sentiment and the unaffected elegance of thought which per- 
vaded the whole of these funeral observances. Thus, it was 
an especial precaution, that none but sweet-scented ever- 
greens and flowers should be employed. The intention 
seems to have been to soften the horrors of the tomb, to 
beguile the mind from brooding over the disgraces of perish- 
ing mortality, and to associate the memory of the deceased 
with the most delicate and beautiful objects in nature. 
There is a dismal process going on in the grave, ere dust can 
return to its kindred dust, which the imagination shrinks 
from contemplating; and we seek still to think of the form 
we have loved with those refined associations which it awak- 
ened when blooming before us in youth and beauty. "Lay 
her i' the earth," says Laertes of his virgin sister, 

•* And from her fair and unpolluted flesh 
May violets spring." 



RURAL FUNERALS. U1 

Herrick, also, in his " Dirge of Jephtha/' pours forth a 
fragrant flow of poetical thought and image, which in a 
manner embalms the dead in the recollections of the living. 

"Sleep in thy peace, tliy bed of spice. 
And make this place all Paradise: 
May sweets grow here! and smoke from hence 

Fat frankincense. 
Let balme and cassia send their scent 
From out thy maiden monument. 

May all shie maids at wonted hours 

Come forth to strew thy tombe with flowers! 

May virgins, when they come to mourn, 

Male incense buru, 
Upon thine altar ! then return 
And leave thee sleeping in thy urn." 

I might crowd my pages with extracts from the older 
British poets, who wrote when these rites were more preva- 
lent, and delighted frequently to allude to them; but I have 
already quoted more than is necessary. I cannot, however, 
refrain from giving a passage from Shakspere, even though 
it should appear trite, which illustrates the emblematical 
meaning often conveyed in these floral tributes, and at the 
same time possesses that magic of language and appositeness 
of imagery for which he stands pre-eminent. 

* ' With fairest flowers, 
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
I'll sweeten thy sad grave; thou shalt not lack 
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor 
The azured harebell like thy veins; no, nor 
The leaf of eglantine; whom not to slander, 
Outsweetened not thy breath," 

There is certainly something more affecting in these 
prompt and spontaneous offerings of nature than in the most 
costly monuments of art; the hand strews the flower while 
the heart is warm, and the tear falls on the grave as affection 
is binding the osier round the sod; but pathos expires under 
the slow labor of the chisel, and is chilled among the cold 
conceits of sculptured marble. 

It is greatly to be regretted that a custom so truly elegant 
and touching has disappeared from general use, and exists 
only in the most remote and insignificant villages. But it 
seems as if poetical custom always shuns the walks of culti- 



118 THE 8KBTCH-B00K. 

vated society. In proportion as people grow polite^ they 
cease to be poetical. They talk of poetry, but they have 
learned to check its free impulses,, to distmst its sallying 
emotions, and to supply its most affecting and picturesque 
usages by studied form and pompous ceremonial. Few 
pageants can be more stately and frigid than an English 
funeral in town. It is made up of show and gloomy parade: 
mourning carriages, mourning horses, mourning plumes, 
and hireling mourners, who make a mockery of grief. 
" There is a grave digged," says Jeremy Taylor, " and a 
solemn mourning, and a great talk in the neighborhood, and 
when the daies are finished, they shall be, and they shall be 
remembered no more." The associate in the gay and crowded 
city is soon forgotten; the hurrying succession of new inti- 
mates and new pleasures effaces him from our minds., and the 
very scenes and circles in which he moved are incessantly 
fluctuating. But funerals in the country are solemnly im- 
pressive. The stroke of death makes a wider space in the 
village circle, and is an awful event in the tranquil uni- 
formity of rural life. The passing bell tolls its knell in every 
ear; it steals with its pervading melancholy over hill and vale, 
and saddens all the landscape. 

The fixed and unchanging features of the country, also, 
perpetuate the memory of the friend with whom we once 
enjoyed them; who was the companion of our most retired 
walks, and gave animation to every lonely scene. His idea 
is associated with every charm of nature: we hear his voice 
in the echo which he once delighted to awaken; his spirit 
haunts the grove which he once frequented; we think of him 
in the wild upland solitude, or amidst the pensive beauty 
of the valley. In the freshness of joyous morning we remem- 
ber his beaming smiles and bounding gayety; and when sober 
evening returns, with its gathering shadows and subduing 
quiet, we call to mind many a twilight hour of gentle talk 
and sweet-souled melancholy. 

" Each lonely place shall him restore, 
For him the tear be duly shed, 
Beloved, till life can charm no more. 
And mourn'd till pity's self be dead." 

Another cause that perpetuates the memory of the de- 
ceased in the country is that the grave is more immediately 
in sight of the survivors. They pass it on their way to 



BUBAL FUNEBAL8. 119 

prayers; it meets their eyes when their hearts are softened 
by the exercise of devotion; they linger about it on the Sab- 
bath, when the mind is disengaged from worldly cares, and 
most disposed to turn aside from present pleasures and pres- 
ent loves, and to sit down among the solemn mementoes of 
the past. In North Wales the peasantry kneel and pray over 
the graves of their deceased friends for several Sundays after 
the interment; and where the tender rite of strewing and 
planting flowers is still practiced, it is always renewed on 
Easter, Whitsuntide, and other festivals, when the season 
brings the companion of former festivity more vividly to 
mind. It is also invariably performed by the nearest rela- 
tives and friends; no menials nor hirelings are employed, and 
if a neighborhood yields assistance, it would be deemed an 
insult to offer compensation. 

I have dwelt upon this beautiful rural custom, because, 
as it is one of the last, so it is one of the holiest offices of love. 
The grave is the ordeal of true affection. It is there that 
the divine passion of the soul manifests its superiority to the 
instinctive impulse of mere animal attachment. The latter 
must be continually refreshed and kept alive by the presence 
of its object; but the love that is seated in the soul can live 
on long remembrance. The mere inclinations of sense lan- 
guish and decline with the charms which excite them, and 
turn with shuddering and disgust from the dismal precincts 
of the tomb; but it is thence that truly spiritual affection 
rises purified from every sensual desire, and returns, like 
a holy flame, to illumine and sanctify the heart of the 
survivor. 

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we 
refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal — 
every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider 
it a duty to keep open — this affliction we cherish and brood 
over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly 
forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, 
though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that 
would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though 
to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of 
agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, 
even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he 
most loved; when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in 
the closing of its portal, would accept of consolation that 
must be bought by forgetfulness? No, the love which siar- 



120 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

vives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. 
If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the 
overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear 
of recollection — when the sudden anguish and the convulsive 
agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is 
softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in 
the days of its loveliness — who would root out such a sorrow 
from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing 
cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sad- 
ness over the hour of gloom; yet who would exchange it even 
for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No, there 
is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a re- 
membrance of the dead, to which we turn even from the 
charms of the living. Oh, the grave! — the grave! It buries 
every error — covers every defect — extinguishes every resent- 
ment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets 
and tender recollections. Who can look down upon tlie 
grave even of an enemy and not feel a compunctious throb, 
that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of 
earth that lies moldering before him? 

But the grave of those we loved — what a place for medita- 
tion. There it is that we call up in long review the whole his- 
tory of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments 
lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse 
of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, 
the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene. The 
bed of death, with all its stifled griefs — its noiseless attend- 
ance — its mute, watchful assiduities. The last testimonies of 
expiring love? The feeble, fluttering, thrilling, oh! how 
thrilling! — pressure of the hand. The last fond look of the 
glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of exist- 
ence. The faint, faltering accents, strugghng in death to 
give one more assurance of affection! 

Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! There 
settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit 
unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that de- 
parted being, who can never — ^never — never return to be 
soothed by thy contrition! 

If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the 
soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate par- 
ent — if thou art a husband and hast ever caused the fond 
bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms to doubt 
one moment of thy kindness or thy truth — if thou art a 



RURAL FUNERALS. 121 

friend, and hast ever wronged, in thongM, or word, or deed, 
the spirit that generously confided in thee — if thon art a 
lover and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that trne 
heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet; then be 
sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every 
ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory 
and knocking dolefully at thy soul — ^then be sure that thou 
wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave and utter 
the unheard groan, and pour the unavaihng tear — ^more deep, 
more bitter, because unheard and unavailing. 

Then weave thy ehaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties 
of nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou 
canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret; but take 
warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite afiiiction over 
the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate 
in the discharge of thy duties to the living. 

In writing the preceding article it was not intended to give 
a full detail of the funeral customs of the English peasantry, 
but merely to furnish a few hints and quotations illustrative 
of particular rites, to be appended, by way of note, to another 
paper which has been withheld. The article swelled insensi- 
bly into its present form, and this is mentioned as an apology 
for so brief and casual a notice of these usages, after they have 
been amply and learnedly investigated in other works. 

I must observe, also, that I am well aware that this custom 
of adorning graves with flowers prevails in other countries 
besides England. Indeed, in some it is much more general, 
and is observed even by the rich and fashionable; but it is 
then apt to lose its simplicity and to degenerate into affecta- 
tion. Bright, in his travels in Lower Hungary, tells of monu- 
ments of marble, and recesses formed for retirement, with 
seats placed among bowers of greenhouse plants; and that 
the graves generally are covered with the gayest . flowers of 
the season. He gives a casual picture of filial piety, which 
I cannot but describe, for I trust it is as useful as it is delight- 
ful to illustrate the amiable virtues of the sex. "When I 
was at Berlin," says he, " I followed the celebrated Iffland 
to the grave. Mingled with some pomp, you might trace 
much real feeling. In the midst of the ceremony my atten- 
tion was attracted by a young woman who stood on a mound 
of earth, newly covered with turf, which she anxiously pro- 
tected from the feet of the passing crowd. It was the tomb 



122 THE SKETCH-BOOK, 

of her parent; and the figure of this affectionate daughter 
presented a monument more striking than the most costly- 
work of art." 

I will barely add an instance of sepulchral decoration that 
I once met with among the mountains of Switzerland. It 
was at the village of Gersau, which stands on the borders of 
the lake of Luzerne, at the foot of Mount Eigi. It was once 
the capital of a miniature republic, shut up between the Alps 
and the lake, and accessible on the land side only by foot- 
paths. The whole force of the republic did not exceed six 
hundred fighting men; and a few miles of circumference, 
scooped out, as it were, from the bosom of the mountains, 
comprised its territory. The village of Gersau seemed sep- 
arated from the rest of the world, and retained the golden 
simplicity of a purer age. It had a small church, with a 
burying-ground adjoining. At the heads of the graves were 
placed crosses of wood or iron. On some were affixed min- 
iatures, rudely executed, but evidently attempts at likenesses 
of the deceased. On the crosses were hung chaplets of flowers, 
some withering, others fresh, as if occasionally renewed. 
I paused with interest at this scene; I felt that I was at the 
source of poetical description, for these were the beautiful, 
but unaffected offerings of the heart, which poets are fain to 
record. In a gayer and more populous place, I should have 
suspected them to have been suggested by factitious senti- 
ment, derived from books; but the people of Gersau knew 
little of books; there was not a novel nor love poem in the vil- 
lage; and I question whether any peasant in the place dreamt, 
while he was twining a fresh chaplet for the grave of his 
mistress, that he was fulfilling one of the most fanciful rites 
of poetical devotion, and that he was practically a poet. 



THE INN KITCHEN. 

Shall I not take mine ease in my inn? 

—Falstaff. 

Dtjking a journey that I once made through the Nether- 
lands, I had arrived one evening at the Pomme d'Or, the 
principal inn of a small Flemish village. It was after the 
hour of the table d'hote, so that I was obliged to make a soli- 
tary supper from the relics of its ampler board. The weather 



THE INN KITCHEN 123 

was chilly; I was seated alone in one end of a great gloomy 
dining room, and my repast being over, I had the prospect he- 
fore me of a long dull evening, without any visible means of 
enlivening it. I summoned mine host, and requested some- 
thing to read; he brought me the whole literary stock of his 
household, a Dutch family Bible, an almanac in the same 
language, and a number of old Paris newspapers. As I sat 
dozing over one of the latter, reading old news and stale 
criticisms, my ear was now and then struck with bursts of 
laughter which seemed to proceed from the kitchen. Every- 
one that has traveled on the Continent must know how favor- 
ite a resort the kitchen of a country inn is to the middle and 
inferior order of travelers; particularly in that equivocal kind 
of weather when a fire becomes agreeable toward evening. I 
threw aside the newspaper, and explored my way to the 
kitchen, to take a peep at the group that appeared to be so 
merry. It was composed partly of travelers who had arrived 
some hours before in a diligence, and partly of the usual at- 
tendants and hangers-on of inns. They were seated round a 
great burnished stove, that might have been mistaken for an 
altar, at which they were worshiping. It was covered with 
various kitchen vessels of resplendent brightness; among 
which steamed and hissed a huge copper tea-kettle. A large 
lamp threw a strong mass of light upon the group, bringing 
out many odd features in strong relief. Its yellow rays par- 
tially illumined the spacious kitchen, dying duskily away into 
remote corners except where they settled in mellow radiance 
on the broad side of a flitch of bacon, or were reflected back 
from well-scoured utensils that gleamed from the midst of 
obscurity. A strapping Flemish lass, with long golden pend- 
ants in her ears, and a necklace with a golden heart suspended 
to it, was the presiding priestess of the temple. 

Many of the company were furnished with pipes, and most 
of them with some kind of evening potation. I found their 
mirth was occasioned by anecdotes which a little swarthy 
Frenchman, with a dry weazened face and large whiskers, was 
giving of his love adventures; at the end of each of which 
there was one of those bursts of honest unceremonious laugh- 
ter, in which a man indulges in that temple of true liberty, 
an inn. 

As I had no better mode of getting through a tedious, blus- 
tering evening, I took my seat near the stove, and listened to 
a variety of travelers' tales, some very extravagant, and most 



i24 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

very dull. All of them^ however, have faded from my treach- 
erous memory, except one, which I will endeavor to relate. 
I fear, however, it derived its chief zest from the manner 
in which it was told, and the peculiar air and appearance of 
the narrator. He was a corpulent old Swiss, who had the 
look of a veteran traveler. He was dressed in a tarnished 
green traveling jacket, with a broad belt round his waist, and 
a pair of overalls with buttons from the hips to the ankles. 
Ho was of a full, rubicund countenance, with a double chin, 
aquiline nose, and a pleasant twinkling eye. His hair was 
light, and curled from under an old green velvet traveling 
cap, stuck on one side of his head. He was interrupted more 
than once by the arrival of guests, or the remarks of his 
auditors; and paused, now and then, to replenish his pipe; 
at which times he had generally a rougish leer, and a sly joke, 
for the buxom kitchen maid. 

I wish my reader could imagine the old fellow lolling in a 
huge armchair, one arm akimbo, the other holding a curi- 
ously t^^dsted tobacco pipe, formed of genuine ecume de mer, 
decorated with silver chain and silken tassel — his head cocked 
on one side, and a whimsical cut of the eye occasionally, as 
he related the following story. 

THE SPECTEE BEIDEGEOOM. 

A TRAVELER'S TALE.* 

He that supper for is dight, 
He lyes full cold, I trow, this night! 
Yestreen to chamber I him led. 
This night Gray-steel has made his bed! 
— Sm Eger, Sir Grahame, and Sir Gray-steel. 

On" the summit of one of the heights of the Odenwald, a 
wild and romantic tract of Upper Germany, that lies not far 
from the confluence of the Maine and the Ehine, there stood, 
many, many years since, the Castle of the Baron Von Land- 
short. It is now quite fallen to decay, and almost buried 
among beech trees and dark firs; above which, however, its 
old watchtower may still be seen struggling, like the former 

* The erudite reader, well versed in good-for-nothing lore, will per- 
ceive that the above Tale must have been suggested to the old Swiss by 
a little French anecdote, of a circumstance said to have taken place at 
Paris. 



THE SPECTER BRIDEGROOM. 12S 

possessor I have mentioned, to carry a high head, and look 
down upon a neighboring country. 

The baron was a dry branch of the great family of Katzen- 
ellenbogen,* and inherited the relics of the property, and all 
the pride of his ancestors. Though the warlike disposition 
of his predecessors had much impaired the family possessions, 
yet the baron still endeavored to keep up some show of for- 
m.er state. The times were peaceable, and the German nobles, 
in general, had abandoned their inconvenient old castles, 
perched Hke eagles' nests among the mountains, and had built 
more convenient residences in the valleys; still the baron re- 
mained proudly drawn up in his little fortress, cherishing 
with hereditary inveteracy all the old family feuds; so that 
he was on ill terms with some of his nearest neighbors, on ac- 
count of disputes that had happened between their great- 
great-grandfathers. 

The baron had but one child, a daughter; but Nature, when 
she grants but one child, always compensates by making it a 
prodigy; and so it was with the daughter of the baron. All 
the nurses, gossips, and country cousins, assured her father 
that she had not her equal for beauty in all Germany; and 
who should know better than they. She had, moreover, been 
brought up with great care, under the superintendence of 
two maiden aunts, who had spent some years of their early 
life at one of the little German courts, and were skilled in all 
the branches of knowledge necessary to the education of a 
fine lady. Under their instructions, she became a miracle of 
accomplishments. By the time she was eighteen she could 
embroider to admiration, and had worked whole histories of 
the saints in tapestry, with such strength of expression in their 
countenances, that they looked like so many souls in purga- 
tory. She could read without great difficulty, and had spelled 
her way through several church legends, and almost all the 
chivalric wonders of the " Heldenbuch." She had even made 
considerable proficiency in writing, could sign her own name 
without missing a letter, and so legibly, that her aunts could 
read it without spectacles. She excelled in making little 
good-for-nothing ladylike knickknacks of all kinds; .was 
versed in the mast abstruse dancing of the day; played a num- 

* i. e.. Cat's Elbow— the name of a family of those parts, very pow- 
ful in former times. The appellation, we are told, was given in compll-^ 
ment to a peerless dame of the family, celebrated for a fine arm. 



126 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

ber of airs oil the harp and guitar; and knew all the tender 
ballads of the Minnie-lieders by heart. 

Her aunts, too, having been great flirts and coquettes in 
their younger days, were admirably calculated to be vigilant 
guardians and strict censors of the conduct of their niece; 
for there is no duenna so rigidly prudent, and inexorably de- 
corous, as a superannuated coquette. She was rarely suffered 
out of their sight; never went beyond the domains of the cas- 
tle, unless well attended, or rather well watched; had continual 
lectures read to her about strict decorum and implicit obedi- 
ence; and, as to the men — pah! she was taught to hold them 
at such distance and distrust, that, unless properly authorized, 
she would not have cast a glance upon the handsomest cava- 
lier in the world — ^no, not if he were even dying at her feet. 

The good effects of this system were wonderfully apparent. 
The young lady was a pattern of docility and correctness. 
"While others were wasting their sweetness in the glare of the 
world, and liable to be plucked and thrown aside by every 
hand, she was coyly blooming into fresh and lovely woman- 
hood under the protection of those immaculate spinsters, like 
a rosebud blushing forth among guardian thorns. Her aunts 
looked upon her with pride and exultation, and vaunted 
that though all the other young ladies in the world might 
go astray, yet, thank Heaven, nothing of the kind could hap- 
pen to the heiress of Katzenellenbogen. 

But however scantily the Baron Von Landshort might be 
provided with children, his household was by no means a 
small one, for Providence had enriched him with abundance 
of poor relations. They, one and all, possessed the affection- 
ate disposition common to humble relatives; were wonderfully 
attached to the baron, and took every possible occasion to 
come in swarms and enliven the castle. All family festivals 
were commemorated by these good people at the baron's ex- 
pense; and when they were filled with good cheer, they would 
declare that there was nothing on earth so delightful as these 
family meetings, these jubilees of the heart. 

The baron, though a small man, had a large soul, and it 
swelled with satisfaction at the consciousness of being the 
greatest man in the little world about him. He loved to tell 
long stories about the stark old warriors whose portraits 
looked grimly down from the walls around, and he found no 
listeners equal to those who fed at his expense. He was 
much given to the inaryelous, and a firm believer iii ^11 those 



TEE 8PECTEB BBIBEQBOOM. 127 

supernatural tales with which every mountain and valley in 
Germany abounds. The faith of his guests even exceeded 
his own: they listened to every tale of wonder with open eyes 
and mouth, and never failed to be astonished, even though 
repeated for the hundredth time. Thus lived the Baron Von 
Landshort, the oracle of his table, the absolute monarch of 
his little territory, and happy, above all things, in the per- 
suasion that he was the wisest man of the age. 

At the time of which my story treats, there was a great 
family gathering at the castle, on an affair of the utmost im- 
portance: — it was to receive the destined bridegroom of the 
baron's daughter. A negotiation had been carried on be- 
tween the father and an old nobleman of Bavaria, to unite 
the dignity of their houses by the marriage of their children. 
The preliminaries had been conducted with proper punctilio. 
The young people were betrothed without seeing each other, 
and the time was appointed for the marriage ceremony. The 
young Count Yon Altenburg had been recalled from the 
army for the purpose, and was actually on his way to the 
baron's to receive his bride. Missives had even been received 
from him, from Wurtzburg, where he was accidentally de- 
tained, mentioning the day and hour when he might be 
expected to arrive. 

The castle was in a tumult of preparation to give him a 
suitable welcome. The fair bride had been decked out with 
uncommon care. The two aunts superintended her toilet, 
and quarreled the whole morning about every article of her 
dress. The young lady had taken advantage of their contest 
to follow the bent of her own taste; and fortunately it was a 
good one. She looked as lovely as youthful bridegroom could 
desire; and the flutter of expectation heightened the luster of 
her charms. 

The suffusions that mantled her face and neck, the gentle 
heaving of the bosom, the eye now and then lofet in reverie, 
all betrayed the soft tumult that was going on in her little 
heart. The aunts were continually hovering around her; for 
maiden aunts are apt to take great interest in affairs of this 
nature; they were giving her a world of staid counsel how to 
deport herself, what to say, and in what manner to receive 
the expected lover. 

The baron was no less busied in preparations. He had, in 
truth, nothing exactly to do; but he was naturally a fuming, 
busthng little man, and could not remain passive when al\ 



128 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

the world was in a hurry. He worried from top to bottom of 
the castle, with an air of infinite anxiety; he continually 
called the servants from their work to exhort them to be dili- 
gent, and buzzed about every hall and chamber, as idly rest- 
less and importunate as a bluebottle fly of a warm summer's 
day. 

In the meantime, the fatted calf had been killed; the forests 
had rung with the clamor of the huntsmen; the kitchen was 
crowded with good cheer; the cellars had yielded up 
whole oceans of BJiein-wein and Ferne-wein, and even 
the great Heidelberg tun had been laid under con- 
tribution. Everything was ready to receive the dis- 
tinguished guest with Saus und Braus in the true 
spirit of German hospitality — but the guest delayed to 
make his appearance. Hour rolled after hour. The sun 
that had poured his downward rays upon the rich forests of 
the Odenwald, now just gleamed along the summits of the 
mountains. The baron mounted the highest tower, and 
strained his eyes in hope of catching a distant sight of the 
count and his attendants. Once he thought he beheld them; 
the sound of horns came floating from the valley, prolonged 
by the mountain echoes: a number of horsemen were seen 
far below, slowly advancing along the road; but when they 
had nearly reached the foot of the mountain, they suddenly 
struck ofl in a different direction. The last ray of sunshine 
departed — the bats began to flit by in the twilight — the road 
grew dimmer and dimmer to the view; and nothing appeared 
stirring in it, but now and then a peasant lagging home from 
his labor. 

While the old castle of Landshort was in this state of per- 
plexity, a very interesting scene was transacting in a differ- 
ent part of the Odenwald. 

The young Count Yon Altenburg was tranquilly pursuing 
his route in that sober jog-trot way in which a man travels 
toward matrimony when his friends have taken all the trouble 
and uncertainty of courtship off his hands, and a bride is 
waiting for him, as certainly as a dinner, at the end of his 
journey. He had encountered at Wiirtzburg a youthful com- 
panion in arms, with whom he had seen so^me service on the 
frontiers; Herman Von Starkenfaust, one of the stoutest 
hands and worthiest hearts of German chivalry, who was now 
returning from the army. His father's castle was not far dis- 
tant from the old fortress of Landshort, although an heredi- 



THE SPECTER BRIDEGROOM, 129 

tary feud rendered the families hostile, and strangers to each 
other. 

In the warm-hearted moment of recognition, the young 
friends related all their past adventures and fortunes, and 
the count gave the whole history of his intended nuptials with 
a young lady whom he had never seen, but of whose charms 
he had received the most enrapturing descriptions. 

As the route of the friends lay in the' same direction, they 
agreed to perform the rest of their journey together; and that 
they might do it more leisurely, set off from Wlirtzburg at 
an early hour, the count having given directions for his 
retinue to follow and overtake him. 

They beguiled their wayfaring with recollections of their 
military scenes and adventures; but the count was apt to be 
a little tedious, now and then, about the reputed charms of his 
bride, and the felicity that awaited him. 

In this way they had entered among the mountains of the 
Odenwald, and were traversing one of its most lonely and 
thickly wooded passes. It is well known that the forests of 
Germany have always been as much infested with robbers as 
its castles by specters; and, at this time, the former were par- 
ticularly numerous, from the hordes of disbanded soldiers 
wandering about the country. It will not appear extraordi- 
nary, therefore, that the cavaliers were attacked by a gang of 
these stragglers, in the midst of the forest. They defended 
themselves with bravery, but were nearly overpowered when 
the count's retinue arrived to their assistance. At sight 
of them the robbers fled, but not until the count had re- 
ceived a mortal wound. He was slowly and carefully con- 
veyed back to the city of Wlirtzburg, and a friar summoned 
from a neighboring convent, who was famous for his skill in 
administering to both soul and body. But half of his skill 
was superfluous; the moments of the unfortunate count were 
.numbered. 

With his dying breath he entreated his friend to repair 
instantly to the castle of Landshort, and explain the fatal 
cause of his not keeping his appointment with his bride. 
Though not the most ardent of lovers, he was one of the most 
punctilious of men, and appeared earnestly solicitous that 
this mission should be speedily and courteously executed. 
" Unless this is done," said he, *^ I shall not sleep quietly in 
my grave! '' He repeated these last words with peculiar 
solemnity. A request, at a moment so impressive, admitted 



130 THE SKBTGB-BOOK. 

no hesitation. Starkenfaust endeavored to soothe him to 
calmness; promised faithfully to execute his wish, and gave 
him his hand in solemn pledge. The dying man pressed it 
in acknowledgment^ but soon lapsed into delirium — raved 
about his bridci — his engagements — his plighted word; 
ordered his horse, that he might ride to the castle of Land- 
short, and expired in the fancied act of vaulting into the 
saddle. 

Starkenfaust bestowed a sigh and a soldier's tear on the 
untimely fate of his comrade; and then pondered on the awk- 
ward mission he had undertaken. His heart was heavy, and 
his head perplexed; for he was to present himself an unbidden 
guest among hostile people, and to damp their festivity with 
tidings fatal to their hopes. Still there were certain whis- 
perings of curiosity in his bosom to see this far-famed beauty 
of Katzenellenbogen, so cautiously shut up from the world; 
for he was a passionate admirer of the sex, and there was a 
dash of eccentricity and enterprise in his character, that made 
him fond of all singular adventure. 

Previous to his departure, he made all due arrangements 
with the holy fraternity of the convent for the funeral solem- 
nities of his friend, who was to be buried in the cathedral of 
Wlirtzburg, near some of his illustrious relatives; and the 
mourning retinue of the count took charge of his remains. 

It is now high time that we should return to the ancient 
family of Katzenellenbogen, who were impatient for their 
guest, and still more for their dinner; and to the worthy little 
baron, whom we left airing himself on the watchtower. 

Night closed in, but still no guest arrived. The baron de- 
scended from the tower in despair. The banquet, which had 
been delayed from hour to hour, could no longer be postponed. 
The meats were already overdone; the cook in an agony; and 
the whole household had the look of a garrison that had been 
reduced by famine. The baron was obliged reluctantly to 
give orders for the roast without the presence of the guest. 
All were seated at table, and just on the point of commencing, 
when the sound of a horn from without the gate gave notice 
of the approach of a stranger. Another long blast filled the 
old courts of the castle with its echoes, and was answered by 
the warder from the walls. The baron hastened to receive 
his future son-in-law. 

The drawbridge had been let down, and the stranger was 
before the gate. He was a tall gallant cavalier,, mounted on 



THE SPECTER BRIDEGROOM, 131 

a black steed. His countenance was pale^, but he had a beam- 
ing, romantic eye, and an air of stately melancholy. The 
baron was a little mortified that he should have come in this 
simple solitary style. His dignity for a moment was ruffled, 
and he felt disposed to consider it a want of proper respect 
for the important occasion, and the important family with 
which he was to be connected. He pacified himself, however, 
with the conclusion that it must have been youthful impa- 
tience which had induced him thus to spur on sooner than 
his attendants. 

"I am sorry," said the stranger, "to break in upon you 
thus unseasonably " 

Here the baron interrupted him with a world of compli- 
ments and greetings; for, to tell the truth, he prided himself 
upon his courtesy and his eloquence. The stranger at- 
tempted, once or twice, to stem the torrent of words, but in 
vain; so he bowed his head and suffered it to flow on. By the 
time the baron had come to a pause, they had reached the 
inner court of the castle; and the stranger was again about to 
speak, when he was once more interrupted by the appearance 
of the female part of the family, leading forth the shrinking 
and blushing bride. He gazed on her for a moment as one 
entranced; it seemed as if his whole soul beamed forth in the 
gaze, and rested upon that lovely form. One of the maiden 
aunts whispered something in her ear; she made an effort to 
speak; her moist blue eye was timidly raised, gave a shy glance 
of inquiry on the stranger, and was cast again to the ground. 
The words died away; but there was a sweet smile playing 
about her lips, and a soft dimpling of the cheek, that showed 
her glance had not been unsatisfactory. It was impossible 
for a girl of the fond age of eighteen, highly predisposed 
for love and matrimony, not to be pleased with so gallant a 
cavalier. 

The late hour at which the guest had arrived, left no time 
for parley. The baron was peremptory, and deferred all par- 
ticular conversation until the morning, and led the way to the 
untasted banquet. 

It was served up in the great hall of the castle. Around 
the walls hung the hard-favored portraits of the heroes of 
the house of Katzenellenbogen, and the trophies which they 
had gained in the field and in the chase. Hacked corslets, 
splintered jousting spears, and tattered banners, were mingled 
with the spoils of sylvan warfare: the jaws of the wolf, and 



132 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

the tusks of the boar, grinned horribly among cross-bows and 
battle-axes, and a huge pair of antlers branched immediately 
over the head of the youthful bridegroom. 

The cavalier took but little notice of the company or the 
entertainment. He scarcely tasted the banquet, but seemed 
absorbed in admiration of his bride. He conversed in a low 
tone, that could not be overheard — for the language of love is 
never loud; but where is the female ear so dull that it cannot 
catch the softest whisper of the lover? There was a mingled 
tenderness and gravity in his manner, that appeared to have 
a powerful effect upon the young lady. Her color came and 
went, as she listened with deep attention. Now and then 
she made some blushing reply, and when his eye was turned 
away, she would steal a sidelong glance at his romantic coun- 
tenance, and heave a gentle sigh of tender happiness. It was 
evident that the young couple were completely enamored. 
The aunts, who were deeply versed in the mysteries of the 
heart, declared that they had fallen in love with each other 
at first sight. 

The feast went on merrily, or at least noisily, for the guests 
were all blessed with those keen appetites that attend upon 
light purses and mountain air. The baron told his best and 
longest stories^ and never had he told them so well, or with 
such great effect. If there was anything marvelous, his audi- 
tors were lost in astonishment; and if anything facetious, they 
were sure to laugh exactly in the right place. The baron, it 
is true, like most great men, was too dignified to utter any 
joke but a dull one; it was always enforced, however, by a 
bumper of excellent Hochheimer; and even a dull joke, at 
one's own table, served up with jolly old wine, is irresistible. 
Many good things are said by poorer and keener wits, that 
would not bear repeating, except on similar occasions; many 
sly speeches whispered in ladies' ears, that almost convulsed 
them with suppressed laughter; and a song or two roared out 
by a poor, but merry and broad-faced cousin of the baron, 
that absolutely made the maiden aunts hold up their fans. 

Amidst all this revelry, the stranger guest maintained a 
most singular and unseasonable gravity. His countenance 
assumed a deeper cast of dejection as the evening advanced, 
and, strange as it may appear, even the baron's jokes seemed 
only to render him the more melancholy. At times he was 
lost in thought, and at times there was a perturbed and rest- 
less wandering of the eyes that bespoke a mind but ill at ease. 



TEE SPECTER BRIDEGROOM. 133 

His conversations with the bride became more and more ear- 
nest and mysterious. Lowering clouds began to steal over 
the fair serenity of her brow^, and tremors to run through her 
tender frame. i 

All this could not escape the notice of the company. Their 
gayety was chilled by the unaccountable gloom of the bride- 
groom; their spirits were infected; whispers and glances were 
interchanged, accompanied by shrugs and dubious shakes of 
the head. The song and the laugh grew less and less fre- 
quent; there were dreary pauses in the conversation, which 
were at length succeeded by wild tales, and supernatural 
legends. One dismal story produced another still more dis- 
mal, and the baron nearly frightened some of the ladies into 
hysterics with the history of the goblin horseman that carried 
away the fair Leonora — a dreadful, but true story, which has 
since been put into excellent verse, and is read and believed 
by all the world. 

The bridegroom listened to this tale with profound atten- 
tion. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the baron, and as 
the story drew to a close, began gradually to rise from his seat, 
growing taller and taller, until, in the baron's entranced eye, 
he seemed almost to tower into a giant. The moment the 
tale was finished, he heaved a deep sigh, and took a solemn 
farewell of the company. They were all amazement. The 
baron was perfectly thunderstruck. 

" What! going to leave the castle at midnight? why, every- 
thing was prepared for his reception; a chamber was ready 
for him if he wished to retire." 

The stranger shook his head mournfully, and mysteriously; 
"I must lay my head in a different chamber to-night! " 

There was something in this reply, and the tone in which 
it was uttered, that made the baron's heart misgive him; but 
he rallied his forces, and repeated his hospitable entreaties. 
The stranger shook his head silently, but positively, at every 
offer; and, waving his farewell to the company, stalked slowly 
out of the hall. The maiden aunts were absolutely petrified 
— the bride hung her head, and a tear stole to her eye. 

The. baron followed the stranger to the great court of the 
castle, where the black charger stood pawing the earth, and 
snorting with impatience. When they had reached the por- 
tal, whose deep archway was dimly lighted by a cresset, the 
stranger paused, and addressed the baron in a hollow tone of 
voice, which the vaulted roof rendered still more sepulchral. 



134 THE SKETCB^BOOK. 

" Now that we are alone/^ said lie, " I will impart to you tlid 
reason of my going. I have a solemn, an indispensable 
engagement ^' 

" Why," said the baron, " cannot yon send someone in your 
place? " 

" It admits of no substitute — I must attend it in person — ^I 
must away to Wiirtzburg Cathedral " 

" Ay," said the baron, plucldng up spirit, " but not until 
to-morrow — tc-morrow you shall take your bride there." 

"No! no!" replied the stranger, with tenfold solemnity, 
"my engagement is with no bride — the worms! the worms 
expect me! I am a dead man — I have been slain by robbers 
— my body lies at Wiirtzburg — at midnight I am to be buried 
— the grave is waiting for me^ — I must keep my appoint- 
ment! " 

He sprang on his black charger, dashed over the draw- 
bridge, and the clattering of his horse's hoofs was lost in the 
whistling of the night-blast. 

The baron returned to the hall in the utmost consterna- 
tion, and related what had passed. Two ladies fainted out- 
right; others sickened at the idea of having banqueted with a 
specter. It was the opinion of some, that this might be the 
wild huntsman famous in German legend. Some talked of 
mountain sprites, of wood-demons, and of other supernatural 
beings, with which the good people of Germany have been so 
grievously harassed since time immemorial. One of the poor 
relations ventured to suggest that it might be some sportive 
evasion of the young cavalier, and that the very gloominess of 
the caprice seemed to accord with so melancholy a personage. 
This, however, drew on him the indignation of the whole com- 
pany, and especially of the baron, who looked upon him as 
little better than an infidel; so that he was fain to abjure his 
heresy as speedily as possible, and come into the faith of the 
true believers. 

But, whatever may have been the doubts entertained, they 
were completely put to an end by the arrival, next day, of 
regular missives, confirming the intelligence of the young 
count's murder, and his interment in Wiirtzburg Cathedral. 

The dismay at the castle may well be imagined. The 
baron shut himself up in his chamber. The guests who had 
come to rejoice with him could not think of abandoning him 
in his distress. They wandered about the courts, or collected 
^ ^oups in the hall^ shaldng their heads and shrugging their 



THE SPECTER BRIDEGROOM, 135 

shoulders, at the troubles of so good a man; and sat longer 
than ever at table, and ate and drank more stoutly than ever, 
by way of keeping up their spirits. But the situation of the 
widowed bride was the most pitiable. To have lost a hus- 
band before she had even embraced him — and such a hus- 
band! if the very specter could be so gracious and noble what 
must have been the living man? She filled the house with 
lamentations. 

On the night of the second day of her widowhood, she had 
retired to her chamber, accompanied by one of her aunts, who 
insisted on sleeping with her. The aunt, who was one of the 
best tellers of ghost stories in all Germany, had just been re- 
counting one of her longest, and had fallen asleep in the very 
midst of it. The chamber was remote, and overlooked a 
small garden. The niece lay pensively gazing at the beams 
of the rising moon, as they trembled on the leaves of an 
aspen tree before the lattice. The castle clock had just tolled 
midnight, when a soft strain of music stole up from the gar- 
den. She rose hastily from her bed, and stepped lightly to 
the window. A tall figure stood among the shadows of the 
trees. As it raised its head, a beam of moonlight fell upon 
the countenance. Heaven and earth! she beheld the Specter 
Bridegroom! A loud shriek at that moment burst upon her 
ear, and her aunt, who had been awakened by the music, and 
had followed her silently to the window, fell into her arms. 
When she looked again, the specter had disappeared. 

Of the two females, the aunt now required the most sooth- 
ing, for she was perfectly beside herself with terror. As to 
the young lady, there was something, even in the specter of 
her lover, that seemed endearing. There was still the sem- 
blance of manly beauty; and though the shadow of a man is 
but little calculated to satisfy the affections of a love-sick 
girl, yet, where the substance is not to be had, even that is 
consoling. The aunt declared she would never sleep in that 
chamber again; the niece, for once, was refractory, and de- 
clared as strongly that she would sleep in no other in the 
castle: the consequence was, that she had to sleep in it alone; 
but she drew a promise from her aunt not to relate the story 
of the specter, lest she should be denied the only melancholy 
pleasure left her on earth — that of inhabiting the chamber 
over which the guardian shade of her lover kept its nightly 
vigils. 

How long the good old lady would have observed this prom- 



136 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

ise is uncertain, for she dearly loved to talk of the marvelous, 
and there is a triumph in being the first to tell a frightful 
story; it is, however, still quoted in the neighborhood, as a 
memorable instance of female secrecy, that she kept it to her- 
self for a whole week; when she was suddenly absolved from 
all further restraint, by intelligence brought to the breakfast 
table one morning that the young lady was not to be found. 
Her room was empty — the bed had not been slept in — the 
window was open — and the bird had flown! 

The astonishment and concern with which this intelligence 
was received, can only be imagined by those who have wit- 
nessed the agitation which the mishaps of a great man cause 
among his friends. Even the poor relations paused for a 
moment from the indefatigable labors of the trencher; when 
the aunt, who had at first been struck speechless, wrung 
her hands and shrieked out, " The goblin! the goblin! she's 
carried away by the goblin! " 

In a few words she related the fearful scene of the garden, 
and concluded that the specter must have carried off his bride. 
Two of the domestics corroborated the opinion, for they had 
heard the clattering of a horse's hoofs down the mountain 
about midnight, and had no doubt that it was the specter on 
his black charger, bearing her away to the tomb. All present 
were struck with the direful probability; for events of the 
kind are extremely common in Germany, as many well-au- 
thenticated histories bear witness. 

What a lamentable situation was that of the poor baron! 
What a heartrending dilemma for a fond father, and member 
of the great family of Katzenellenbogen! His only daughter 
had either been rapt away to the grave, or he was to have 
some wood-demon for a son-in-law, and, perchance, a troop of 
goblin grandchildren. As usual, he was completely bewil- 
dered, and all the castle in an uproar. The men were ordered 
to take horse, and scour every road and path and glen of the 
Odenwald. The baron himself had just drawn on his jack- 
boots, girded on his sword, and was about to mount his steed 
to sally forth on the doubtful quest, when he was brought to 
a pause by a new apparition. A lady was seen approaching 
the castle, mounted on a palfrey and attended by a cavalier 
on horseback. She galloped up to the gate, sprang from her 
horse, and falling at the baron's feet embraced his knees. It 
was his lost daughter, and her companion — the Specter Bride- 
groom! The baron was astounded. He looked at his daugh- 



THE SPECTER BRIDEGROOM. 137 

ter, then at the Specter, and almost doubted the evidence of 
his senses. The latter, too, was wonderfully improved in his 
appearance, since his visit to the world of spirits. His dress 
was splendid, and set off a noble figure of manly symmetry. 
He was no longer pale and melancholy. His fine counte- 
nance was flushed with the glow of youth, and joy rioted in 
his large dark eye. 

The mystery was soon cleared up. The cavaher (for in 
truth, as you must have known all the while, he was no gob- 
lin) announced himself as Sir Herman Von Starkenfaust. 
He related his adventure with the young count. He told 
how he had hastened to the castle to deliver the unwelcome 
tidings, but that the eloquence of the baron had interrupted 
him in every attempt to tell his tale. How the sight of the 
bride had completely captivated him, and that to pass a few 
hours near her, he had tacitly suffered the mistake to con- 
tinue. How he had been sorely perplexed in what way to 
make a decent retreat, until the baron^s goblin stories had 
suggested his eccentric exit. How, fearing the feudal hos- 
tility of the family, he had repeated his visits by stealth — had 
haunted the garden beneath the young lady's window — had 
wooed — had won — had borne away in triumph — and, in a 
word, had wedded the fair. 

Under any other circumstances the baron would have been 
inflexible, for he was tenacious of paternal authority, and 
devoutly obstinate in all family feuds; but he loved his daugh- 
ter; he had lamented her as lost; he rejoiced to find her still 
alive; and, though her husband was of a hostile house, yet, 
thank Heaven, he was not a goblin. There was something, 
it must be acknowledged, that did not exactly accord with 
his notions of strict veracity, in the joke the knight had 
p»assed upon him of his being a dead man; but several old 
friends present, who had served in the wars, assured him that 
every stratagem was excusable in love, and that the cavalier 
was entitled to especial privilege, having lately served as a 
trooper. 

Matters, therefore, were happily arranged. The baron 
pardoned the young couple on the spot. The revels at the 
castle were resumed. The poor relations overwhelmed this 
new member of the family with loving kindness; he was so 
gallant, so generous — and so rich. The aunts, it is true, were 
somewhat scandalized that their system of strict seclusion and 
passive obedience should be so badly exemplified, but at- 



138 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

tributed it all to their negligence in not having the windows 
grated. One of them was particularly mortified at having 
her marvelous story marred^ and that the only specter she 
had ever seen should turn out a counterfeit; but the niece 
seemed perfectly happy at having found him substantial flesh 
and blood — and so the story ends. 



WESTMINSTEE ABBEY. 

When I behold, with deep astonishment, 
To famous Westminster how there resorte, 
Living in brasse or stony monument, 
The princes and the worthies of all sorte; 
Doe not I see reformde nobilitie. 
Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation, 
And looke upon offenseless majesty, 
Naked of pomp or earthly domination? 
And how a play-game of a painted stone 
Contents the quiet now and silent sprites, 
Whome all the world which late they stood upon, 
Could not content nor quench their appetites. 
Life is a frost of cold felicitie. 
And death the thaw of all our vanitie. 

— Ghristolero's Epigrams, hy T. B., 1598. 

On one of those sober and rather melancholy days, in the 
latter part of autumn, when the shadows of morning and 
evening almost mingle together, and throw a gloom over the 
decline of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about 
Westminster Abbey. There was something congenial to the 
season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile; and as I 
passed its threshold, it seemed like stepping back into the 
regions of antiquity, and losing myself among the shades of 
former ages. 

I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, 
through a long, low, vaulted passage, that had an almost 
subterranean look, being dimly lighted in one part by circu- 
lar perforations in the massive walls. Through this dark 
avenue I had a distant view of the cloisters, with the figure 
of an old verger, in his black gown, moving along their 
shadowy vaults, and seeming like a specter from one of the 
neighboring tombs. 

The approach to the abbey through these gloomy monastic 
remains, prepares the mind for its solemn contemplation. 
The cloister still retains something of the quiet and seclusion 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 139 

of former days. The gray walls are discolored by damps, 
and crumbling with age; a coat of hoary moss has gathered 
over the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and obscured 
the death^s heads, and other funeral emblems. The sharp 
touches of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the 
arches; the roses which adorned the keystones have lost their 
leafy beauty; everything bears marks of the gradual dilapi- 
dations of time, which yet has something touching and pleas- 
ing in its very decay. 

The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the 
square of cloisters; beaming upon a scanty plot of grass in 
the center, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage 
with a kind of dusky splendor. From between the arcades, 
the eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky, or a passing cloud; 
and beheld the sunlit pinnacles of the abbey towering into the 
azure heaven. I 

As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating this 
mingled picture of glory and decay, and sometimes endeavor- 
ing to decipher the inscriptions on the tombstones, which 
formed the pavement beneath my feet, my eyes were at- 
tracted to three figures, rudely carved in relief, but nearly 
worn away by the footsteps of many generations. They were 
the effigies of three of the early abbots; the epitaphs were 
entirely effaced; the names alone remained, having no doubt 
been renewed in later times (Vitalis. Abbas. 1082, and 
Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 1114, and Laurentius. Abbas. 
1176). I remained some little time musing over these casual 
relics of antiquity, thus left like wrecks upon this distant 
shore of time, telling no tale but that such beings had been 
and had perished; teaching no moral but the futility of that 
pride which hopes still to exact homage in its ashes and to 
live in an inscription. A little longer, and even these faint 
records will be obliterated, and the monument will cease to 
be a memorial. Whilst I was yet looking down upon the 
gravestones, I was roused by the sound of the abbey clock, 
reverberating from buttress to buttress, and echoing among 
the cloisters. It was almost startling to hear this warning of 
departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the 
lapse of the houi, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward 
toward the grave. 

I pursued my walk to an arched door opening to the in- 
terior of the abbey. On entering here, the magnitude of the 
building breaks fully upon the mind, contrasted with the 



140 THE iiKETGE-BOOE. 

vaults of the cloisters. The eye gazes with wonder at clus- 
tered columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing 
from them to such an amazing height; and man wandering 
about their bases, shrunk into insignificance in comparison 
with his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of 
this vast edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe. We 
step cautiously and softly about, as if fearful of disturbing 
the hallowed silence of the tomb; while every footfall whis- 
pers along the walls, and chatters among the sepulchers, mak- 
ing us more sensible of the quiet we have interrupted. 

It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down 
upon the soul, and hushes the beholder into noiseless rever- 
ence. We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated 
bones of the great men of past times., who have filled history 
with their deeds and the earth with their renown. And yet 
it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition 
to see how they are crowded together and jostled in the dust; 
what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook — ^a 
gloomy corner — a little portion of earth to those whom, 
when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy; and how many 
shapes, and forms, and artifices are devised to catch the 
casual notice of the passenger, and save from forgetfulness, 
for a few short years, a name which once aspired to occupy 
ages of the world^s thought and admiration. 

I passed some time in Poet^s Corner, which occupies an 
end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the abbey. The 
monuments are generally simple, for the lives of literary 
men afford no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakspere 
and Addison have statues erected to their memories; but the 
greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere in- 
scriptions. JSTotwithstanding the simplicity of these mem- 
orials, I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey 
remain longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling 
takes the place of that cold curiosity or vague admiration with 
which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and 
the heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of 
friends and companions; for indeed there is something of 
companionship between the author and the reader. Other 
men are known to posterity only through the medium of his- 
tory, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but 
the intercourse between the author and his fellowmen is ever 
new, active, and immediate. He has lived for them more than 
for himself; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoyments, and 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 141 

shut himself up from the delights of social life, that he might 
the more intimately commune with distant minds and distant 
ages. Well may the world cherish his renown; for i^ has been 
purchased not by deeds of violence and blood, but by the 
diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may posterity be 
grateful to his memory; for he has left it an inheritance not 
of empty names and sounding actions, but whole treasures of 
wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of 
language. 

From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll toward that part 
of the abbey which contains the sepulchers of the kings. I 
wandered among what once were chapels, but which are now 
occupied by the tombs and monuments of the great. At 
every turn I met with some illustrious name, or the cogniz- 
ance of some powerful house renowned in history. As the 
eye darts into these dusky chambers of death, it catches 
glimpses of quaint effigies: some kneeling in niches, as if in 
devotion; others stretched upon the tombs, with hands 
piously pressed together; warriors in armor, as if reposing 
after battle; prelates, with crosiers and miters; and nobles 
in robes and coronets, lying as it were in state. In glancing 
over this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form 
is so still and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading 
a mansion of that fabled city where every being had been 
suddenly transmuted into stone. 

I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of 
a knight in complete armor. A large buckler was on one arm; 
the hands were pressed together in supplication upon the 
breast; the face was almost covered by the morion; the legs 
were crossed in token of the warrior's having been engaged in 
the holy war. It was the tomb of a Crusader — of one of those 
military enthusiasts, who so strangely mingled religion and 
romance, and whose exploits form the connecting link be- 
tween fact and fiction — between the history £jid the fairy 
tale. There is something extremely picturesque in the tombs 
of these adventurers, decorated as they are with rude armorial 
bearings and Gothic sculpture. They comport with the anti- 
quated chapels in which they are generally found; and in 
considering them the imagination is apt to kindle with the 
legendary associations, the romantic fictions, the chivalrous 
pomp and pageantry, which poetry has spread over the wars 
for the sepulcher of Christ. They are the relics of times ut- 
terly gone by; of beings passed from recollection; of customs 



142 THE SKETCHBOOK. 

and manners with which ours have no affinity. They are like 
objects from some strange and distant land, of which we have 
no certain knowledge, and about which our conceptions are 
vague and visionary. There is something extremely solemn 
and awful in those effigies on Gothic tombs, extended as if in 
the sleep of death, or in the supplication of the dying hour. 
They have an effect infinitely more impressive on my feelings 
than the fanciful attitudes, the overwrought conceits, and 
allegorical groups which abound on modem monuments. I 
have been struck, also, with the superiority of many of the 
old sepulchral inscriptions. There was a noble way in former 
times of saying things simply, and yet saying them proudly; 
and I do not know an epitaph that breathes a loftier con- 
sciousness of family worth and honorable lineage, than one 
which affirms, of a noble house, that " all the brothers were 
brave and all the sisters virtuous.^' 

In the opposite transept to Poet's Comer stands a monu- 
ment, which is among the most renowned achievements of 
modern art; but which, to me, appears horrible rather than 
sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Koubillac. 
The bottom of the monument is represented as throwing open 
its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. 
The shroud is falling from the fleshless frame as he launches 
his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted hus- 
band's arms, who strives with vain and frantic effort to avert 
the blow. The whole is executed with terrible truth and 
spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of tri- 
umph bursting fom the distended jaws of the specter. But 
why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary 
terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we 
love? The grave should be surrounded by everything that 
might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that 
might win the living to virtue. It is the place not of dis- 
gust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation. 

While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent 
aisles, studying the records of the dead, the sound of busy ex- 
istence from without occasionally reaches the ear — the rum- 
bling of the passing equipage, the murmur of the multitude, 
or perhaps the light laugh of pleasure. The contrast is strik- 
ing with the deathlike repose around, and it has a strange 
effect upon the feelings, thus to hear the surges of active life 
hurrying along and beating against the very walls of the 
sepulcher. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 143 

I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb, and 
from chapel to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away; 
the distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and 
less frequent; the sweet tongued bell was summoning to even- 
ing prayers; and I saw at a distance the choristers in their 
white surplices crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I 
stood before the entrance to Henry VII.^s chapel. A flight 
of steps leads up to it, through a, deep and gloomy, but mag- 
nificent arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately 
wrought, turn heavily upon their hinges, as if proudly reluc- 
tant to admit the feet of common mortals into this most gor- 
geous of sepulchers. 

On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp of architec- 
ture and the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very 
walls are wrought into universal ornament, encrust'Cd with 
tracery and scooped into niches, crowded with the statues of 
saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the 
chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density; sus- 
pended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved 
with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb. 

Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the 
Knights of the Bath, richly carved of oak, though with the 
grotesque decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pinna- 
cles of the stalls are affixed the helmets and crests of the 
knights, with their scarfs and swords; and above them are 
suspended their banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, 
and contrasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson 
with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this 
grand mausoleum stands the sepulcher of its founder, his 
effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb, 
and the whole surrounded by a superbly wrought brazen 
railing. 

There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence; this strange 
mixture of tombs and trophies; these emblems of living and 
aspiring ambition, close beside mementoes which show the 
dust and oblivion in which all must sooner or later terminate. 
Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneli- 
ness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former 
throng and pageant. On looking round on the vacant stalls 
of the knights and their esquires, and on the rows of dusty but 
gorgeous banners that were once borne before them, my im- 
agination conjured up the scene when this hall was bright 
.with the valor and beauty of the land, glittering with the 



144 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

splendor of jeweled rank and military array; alive with the 
tread of many feet and the hnm of an admiring multitude. 
All had passed away; the silence of death had settled again 
upon the place^, interrupted only by the casual chirping of 
birds which had found their way into the chapel and built 
their nests among its friezes and pendants — sure signs of soli- 
tariness and desertion. When I read the names inscribed on 
the banners,, they were those of men scattered far and wide 
about the world — some tossing upon distant seas, some under 
arms in distant lands, some mingling in the busy intrigues 
of courts and cabinets; all seeking to deserve one more dis- 
tinction in this mansion of shadowy honors — the melancholy 
reward of a monument. 

Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a 
touching instance of the equality of the grave, which brings 
down the oppressor to a level with the oppressed, and mingles 
the dust of the bitterest enemies together. In one is the 
sepulcher of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of 
her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour 
in the day but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the 
fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. 
The walls of Elizabeth's sepulcher continually echo with the 
sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave of her rival. 

A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary 
lies buried. The light struggles dimly through windows 
darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep 
shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time and 
weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the 
tomb, round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing 
her national emblem — the thistle. I was weary with wander- 
ing, and sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolving 
in my mind the chequered and disastrous story of poor Mary. 

The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. 

I could only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the 

priest repeating the evening service, and the faint responses 

of the choir; these paused for a time, and all was hushed. 

The stillness, the desertion, and obscurity that were gradually 

prevailing around gave a deeper and more solemn interest 

to the place: 

•* For in the silent grave no conversation, 
Ko joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers. 
No careful father's counsel — nothing's heard, 
For nothing is, but all oblivion, 
Dust, and an endless darkness." 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 145 

Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon 
the ear^ falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and 
rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their 
volume and grandeur accord with this mighty building! 
With what pomp do' they swell through its vast vaults, and 
breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, 
and make the silent sepulcher vocal! And now they rise in 
triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their 
accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. And now they 
pause, and the soft voices of the choir break into sweet gushes 
of melody; they soar aloft and warble along the roof, and 
seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of 
heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thun- 
ders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the 
soul. What long-drawn cadences! What solemn, sweeping 
concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful — ^it 
fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls — the ear is 
stunned — the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding 
up in full jubilee^ — it is rising from the earth to Heaven — the 
very soul seems rapt away and floated upward on this swell- 
ing tide of harmony! 

I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a 
strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire; the shadows of 
evening were gradually thickening around me; the monu- 
ments began to cast deeper and deeper gloom; and the distant 
clock again gave token of the slowly waning day. 

I arose, and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended 
the flight of steps which lead into the body of the building, 
my eye was caught by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, 
and I ascended the small staircase that conducts to it, to take 
from thence a general survey of this wilderness of tombs. 
The shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close 
around it are the sepulchers of various kings and queens. 
From this eminence the eye looks down between pillars and 
funeral trophies to the chapels and chambers below, crowded 
with tombs, where warriors, prelates, courtiers, and states- 
men lie moldering in " their beds of darkness." Close by me 
stood the great chair of coronation, rudely carved of oak, in 
the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene 
seemed almost as if contrived, with theatrical artifice, to pro- 
duce an effect upon the beholder. Here was a type of the 
beginning and the end of human pomp and power; here it 
was literally but a step from the throne to the sepulcher. 



146 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

Would not one tliink that these incongrnoiis mementoes had 
been gathered together as a lesson to living greatness? — to 
show it^ even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the 
neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive? how soon 
that crown which encircles its brow must pass away; and it 
must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and be 
trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of the multitude? 
For, strange to tell, even the grave is here no longer a sanc- 
tuary. There is a shocking levity in some natures, which 
leads them to sport with awful and hallowed things; and 
there are base minds, which delight to revenge on the illus- 
trious dead the abject homage and groveling servility which 
they pay to the living. The coffin of Edward the Confessor 
has been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their 
funeral ornaments; the scepter has been stolen from the hand 
of the imperious Elizabeth, and the effigy of Henry V. lies 
headless. Not a royal monument but bears some proof how 
false and fugitive is the homage of mankind. Some are 
plundered; some mutilated; some covered with ribaldry and 
insult — all more or less outraged and dishonored! 

The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through 
the painted windows in the high vaults above me; the lower 
parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of 
twilight. The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. 
The effigies of the kings faded into shadows; the marble fig- 
ures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the un- 
certain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like 
the cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of 
a verger, traversing the Poet^s Corner, had something strange 
and dreary in its sound. I slowly retraced my morning^s 
walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the 
door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole 
building with echoes. 

I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the 
objects I had been contemplating, but found they were 
already falling into indistinctness and confusion. Names, 
inscriptions, trophies, had all become confounded in my recol- 
lection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the 
threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepul- 
chers but a treasury of humiliation; a huge pile of reiterated 
homilies on the emptiness of renown, and the certainty of 
oblivion? It is, indeed, the empire of Death; his great 
shadowy palace; where he sits in state, mocking at the relics 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 14"? 

of human glory^ and spreading dnst and forgetfulness on the 
monuments of princes. How idle a boast^ after all, is the im- 
mortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his 
pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present, 
to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest 
to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be 
speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of 
yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be sup- 
planted by his successor of to-morrow. " Our fathers,^^ says 
Sir Thomas Brown, " find their graves in our short memories, 
and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivers." 
History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and 
controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet; the 
statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, 
what are they but heaps of sand — and their epitaphs, but 
characters written in the dust? What is the security of the 
tomb, or the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains of 
Alexander the Great have been scattered to the wind, and his 
empty sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum. 
'' The Egyptian mummies which Cambyses or time hath 
spared, avarice now consumeth; Mizraim cures wounds, and 
Pharaoh is sold for balsams." * 

What then is to insure this pile, which now towers above 
me, from sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums? The 
time must come when its gilded vaults, which now spring so 
loftily, shall lie in rubbish beneath the feet; when, instead of 
the sound of melody and praise, the wind shall whistle 
through the broken arches, and the owl hoot from, the shat- 
tered tower — when the garish sunbeam shall break into 
these gloomy mansions of death; and the ivy twine round 
the fallen column; and the fox-glove hang its blossoms about 
the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus man 
passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; 
his history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument 
becomes a ruin. 

* Sir Thomas Brown. 



148 THE SKETCH-BOOK, 



CHEISTMAS. 



But is oid, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of 
his good, gray old head and beard left ? Well, I will have that, seeing 
I cannot have more of him. — Hue and Cry After Christmas. 

A man might then behold 

At Christmas, in each hall, 
Good fires to curb the cold, 

And meat for great and small. 
The neighbours were friendly bidden, 

And all had welcome true. 
The poor from the gates were not chidden, 

When this old cap was new. 

— Old Song. 

Theee is nothing in England that exercises a more delight- 
ful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holi- 
day customs and rural games of former times. They recall 
the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May morning of 
life, when as yet I only knew the world through books, and 
believed it to be all that poets had painted it; and they 
bring with them the flavor of those honest days of yore, in 
which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world 
was more homebred, social, and joyous than at present. I 
regret to say that they are daily growing more and more faint, 
being gradually worn away by time, but still more obliterated 
by modem fashion. They resemble those picturesque morsels 
of Gothic architecture, which we see crumbling in various 
parts of the country, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages, 
and partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days. 
Poetry, however, clings with cherishing fondness about the 
rural game and holiday revel, from which it has derived so 
many of its themes — as the ivy winds its rich foliage about the 
Gothic arch and moldering tower, gratefully repaying their 
support, by clasping together their tottering remains, and, as 
it were, embalming them in verdure. 

Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens 
the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone 
of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, 
and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoy- 
ment. The services of the Church about this season are ex- 
tremely tender and inspiring:: they dwell on the beautiful 
story of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that 
accompanied its announcement: they gradually increase in 



CHBI8TMA8. 149 

fervor and pathos during the season of Advent, until they 
break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace 
and good will to men. I do not know a grander effect of 
music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and 
the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cath- 
edral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant 
harmony. 

It is a beautiful arrangement, also, derived from days of 
yore, that this festival, which commemorates the announce- 
ment of the religion of peace and love, and has been made 
the season for gathering together of family connections, and 
drawing closer again those bands of kindred hearts, which the 
cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are continually 
operating to cast loose, of calling back the children of a 
family, who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely 
asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, 
that rallying-place of the affections, there to grow young 
and loving again among the endearing mementos of child- 
hood. 

There is something in the very season of the year, that 
gives a charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other times 
we derive a great portion of our pleasures from the mere 
beauties of N'ature. Our feelings sally forth and dissipate 
themselves over the sunny landscape, and we " live abroad 
and ever3rwhere.^^ The song of the bird, the murmur of the 
stream, the breathing fragrance of spring, the soft volup- 
tuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumn; earth with 
its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with its deep deli- 
cious blue and its cloudy magnificence, — all fill us with mute 
but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere sen- 
sation. But in the depth of winter, when Nature lies de- 
spoiled of every charm, and wrapped in her shrou.d of sheeted 
snow, we turn for our gratifications to moral sources. The 
dreariness and desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy 
days and darksome nights, while they circumscribe our wan- 
derings, shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, and 
make us more keenly disposed for the pleasures of the social 
circle. Our thoughts are more concentrated; our friendly 
sympathies more aroused. We feel more sensibly the charm 
of each other's society, and are brought more closely together 
by dependence on each other for enjoyment. Heart calleth 
unto heart, and we draw our pleasures from the deep wells of 
loving-kindness which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms; 



150 THE 8KET0H-B00K. 

and whicli, when resorted to, furnish forth the pure element 
of domestic fehcity. 

The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on enter- 
ing the room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening 
fire. The ruddy hlaze difi:uses an artificial summer and sun- 
shine through the room, and lights up each countenance into 
a kindlier welcome. Where does the honest face of hospi- 
tality expand into a broader and more cordial smile — where is 
the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent — than by the 
winter fireside ? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes 
through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the 
casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can be more 
grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security, with 
which we look round upon the comfortable chamber, and the 
scene of domestic hilarity? 

The English, from the great prevalence of rural habits 
throughout every class of society, have always been fond of 
those festivals and holidays which agreeably interrupt the 
stillness of country life; and they were in former days par- 
ticularly observant of the religious and social rights of Christ- 
mas. It is inspiring to read even the dry details which some 
antiquaries have given of the quaint humors^ the burlesque 
pageants, the complete abandonment to mirth and good-fel- 
lowship, with which this festival was celebrated. It seemed 
to throw open every door, and . unlock every heart. It 
brought the peasant and the peer together, and blended all 
ranks in one warm generous fiow of joy and kindness. The 
old halls of castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp 
and the Christmas carol, and their ample boards groaned 
under the weight of hospitality. Even the poorest cottage 
w^comed the festive season with green decorations of bay 
ana holly — the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the 
lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch, and join 
the gossip knot huddled round the hearth, beguiling the 
long evening with legendary jokes, and oft-told Christmas 
tales. 

One of the least pleasing effects of modern refinement is the 
havoc it has made among the hearty old holiday customs. It 
has completely taken off the sharp touchings and spirited re- 
liefs of these embellishments of life, and has worn down so- 
ciety into a more smooth and polished, but certainly a less 
characteristic surface. Many of the games and ceremonials 
of Christmas have entirely disappeared, and, like the sherria 



CHBI8TMA8. 161 

sack of old Falstaff, are become matters of speculation and 
dispute among commentators. They flourished in times full 
of spirit and lustihood^, when men enjoyed life roughly^ but 
heartily and vigorously: times wild and picturesque, which 
have furnished poetry with its richest materials, and the 
drama with its most attractive variety of characters and man- 
ners. The world has become more worldly. There is more 
of dissipation and less of enjoyraent. Pleasure has expanded 
into a broader, but a shallower stream, and has forsaken many 
of those deep and quiet channels, where it flowed sweetly 
through the calm bosom of domestic life. Society has ac- 
quired a more enlightened and elegant tone; but it has lost 
many of its strong local peculiarities, its homebred feelings, 
its honest fireside delights. The traditionary customs of 
golden-hearted antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and lordly 
wassailings, have passed away with the baronial castles and 
stately manor-houses in which they were celebrated. They 
comported with the shadowy hall, the great oaken gallery, 
and the tapestried parlor, but are unfitted for the light showy 
saloons and gay drawing rooms of the modem villa. 

Shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and festive honors, 
Christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in Eng- 
land. It is gratifying to see that home feeling completely 
aroused which holds so powerful a place in every English 
bosom. The preparations making on every side for the social 
board that is again to unite friends and kindred — the presents 
of good cheer passing and repassing, those tokens of re- 
gard and quickeners of kind feelings — the evergreens dis- 
tributed about the houses and churches, emblems of peace 
and gladness — all these have the most pleasing effect in pro- 
ducing fond associations, and kindling benevolent sympa- 
thies. Even the sound of the waits, rude as may be their 
minstrelsy, breaks upon the midwatches of a winter night 
with the effect of perfect harmony. As I have been awak- 
ened by them in that still and solemn hour " when deep sleep 
f alleth upon man," I have listened with a hushed delight, and 
connecting them with the sacred and joyous occasion, have 
almost fancied them into another celestial choir, announcing 
peace and good will to mankind. How delightfully the im- 
agination, when wrought upon by these moral influences, 
turns everything to melody and beauty! The very crowing of 
the cock, heard sometimes in the profound repose of the 
country^ " telling the night watches to his feathery dames/' 



152 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

was thought by the common people to annoimce the approach 
of the sacred festival: 

" Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes 
Wherein our Saviour's birth was celebrated, 
This bird of dawning singeth all night long : 
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ; 
The nights are wholesome — then no planets strike, 
No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, 
So hallowed and so gracious is the time." 

Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the 
spirits, and stir of the affections, which prevail at this period, 
what bosom can remain insensible? It is, indeed, the season 
of regenerated feeling — the season for kindling not merely 
the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of 
charity in the heart. The scene of early love again rises green 
to memory beyond the sterile waste of years, and the idea 
of home, fraught with the fragrance of home-dwelling joys, 
reanimates the drooping spirit — as the Arabian breeze will 
sometimes waft the freshness of the distant fields to the weary 
pilgrim of the desert. 

Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land — ^though for me 
no social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its 
doors, nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the 
threshold — yet I feel the influence of the season beaming into 
my soul from the happy looks of those around me. Surely 
happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every 
countenance bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent 
enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a 
supreme and ever shining benevolence. He who can turn 
churlishly away from contemplating the felicity of his fellow 
beings, and can sit down darkling and repining in his loneli- 
ness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of 
s-trong excitement and selfish gratification, but he wants 
the genial and social sympathies which constitute the charm 
of a merry Christmas. 



TEE STAGE-COACH. 153 



THE STAGE-COACH. 

Omne ben5 

Sine poen^ 
Tempus est ludendi 

Venit hora 

Absque mor^ 
Libros deponendi. 

— Old Holiday School Song. 

In the preceding paper, I have made some general observa- 
tions on the Christmas festivities of England, and I am 
tempted to illustrate them by some anecdotes of a Christmas 
passed in the country; in perusing which, I would most 
courteously invite my reader to lay aside the austerity of 
wisdom, and to put on that genuine holiday spirit, which is 
tolerant of folly and anxious only for amusement. 

In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I rode for 
a long distance in one of the public coaches, on the day pre- 
ceding Christmas. The coach was crowded, both inside and 
out, with passengers, who, by their talk, seemed principally 
bound to the mansions of relations or friends, to eat the 
Christmas dinner. It was loaded also with hampers of game, 
and baskets and boxes of delicacies; and hares hung dangling 
their long ears about the coachman's box, presents from dis- 
tant friends for the impending feast. I had three fine rosy- 
cheeked schoolboys for my fellow-passengers inside, full of 
the buxom health and manly spirit which I have observed in 
the children of this country. They were returning home for 
the holidays, in high glee, and promising themselves a world 
of enjoyment. It was delighfful to hear the gigantic plans of 
pleasure of the little rogues, and the impracticable feats they 
were to perform during their six weeks' emancipation from 
the abhorred thraldom of book, birch, and pedagogue. They 
were full of the anticipations of the meeting of the family 
and household, down to the very cat and dog; and of the joys 
they were to give their little sisters, by the presents with 
which their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to which 
they seemed to look forward with the greatest impatience was 
with Bantam, which I found to be a pony, and, according to 
their talk, possessed of more virtues than any steed since the 
days of Bucephalus. How he could trot! how he could run! 
and then such leaps as he would take — there was not a hedge 
in the whole country that he could not clear. 



154 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

They were under the particular guardianship of the coach- 
man, to whom, whenever an opportunity presented, they ad- 
dressed a host of questions, and pronounced him one of the 
best fellows in the whole world. Indeed, I could not but 
notice the more than ordinary air of bustle and importance of 
the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one side, and had a 
large bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the buttonhole of 
his coat. He is always a personage full of mighty care and 
business; but he is particularly so during this season, having 
so many commissions to execute in consequence of the great 
interchange of presents. And here, perhaps, it may not be 
unacceptable to my un traveled readers, to have a sketch that 
may serve as a general representation of this numerous and im- 
portant class of functionaries, who have a dress, a manner, a 
language, an air, peculiar to themselves, and prevalent 
throughout the fraternity; so that, wherever an English stage- 
coachman may be seen, he cannot be mistaken for one of any 
other craft or mystery. 

He has commonly a broad full face, curiously mottled with 
red, as if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into 
every vessel of the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions 
by frequent potations of malt liquors, and his bulk is still 
further increased by a multiplicity of coats, in which he is 
buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching to his heels. 
He wears a broad-brimmed low-crowned hat, a huge roll of 
colored handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and 
tucked in at the bosom; and has in summer time a large bou- 
quet of flowers in his buttonhole, the present, most probably, 
of some enamored country lass. His waistcoat is commonly of 
some bright color, striped, and his smallclothes extend far 
below the knees, to meet a pair of jockey boots which reach 
about halfway up his legs. 

All this costume is maintained with much precision; he has 
a pride in having his clothes of excellent materials, and, not- 
withstanding the seeming grossness of his appearance, there 
is still discernible that neatness and propriety of person, 
which is almost inherent in an Englishman. He enjoys 
great consequence and consideration along the road; has fre- 
quent conferences with the village housewives, who look upon 
him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems to 
have a good understanding with every bright-eyed country 
lass. The moment he arrives where the horses are to be 
changed, he throws down the reins with something of an air. 



THE 8TAOE-C0ACH. 155 

and abandons the cattle to the care of the hostler^ his duty 
being merely to drive them from one stage to another. When 
off the box, his hands are thrust in the pockets of his great- 
coat, and he rolls about the inn yard with an air of the most 
absolute lordliness. Here he is generally surrounded by an 
admiring throng of hostlers, stable boys, shoeblacks, and those 
nameless hangers-on, that infest inns and taverns, and run 
errands, and do all kind of odd jobs, for the privilege of 
battening on the drippings of the kitchen and the leakage of 
the taproom. These all look up to him as to an oracle; treas- 
ure up his cant phrases; echo his opinions about horses and 
other topics of jockey lore; and, above all, endeavor to imitate 
his air and carriage. Every ragamuffin that has a coat to his 
back, thrusts his hands in the pockets, rolls in his gait, talks 
slang, and is an embryo Coachey. 

Perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing serenity that 
reigned in my own mind, that I fancied I saw cheerfulness in 
every countenance throughout the journey. A stage-coach, 
however, carries animation always with it, and puts the world 
in motion as it whirls along. The horn, sounded at the 
entrance of a village, produces a general bustle. Some hasten 
forth to meet friends; some with bundles and bandboxes to 
secure places, and in the hurry of the moment can hardly 
take leave of the group that accompanies them. In the mean- 
time, the coachman has a world of small commissions to exe- 
cute. Sometimes he delivers a hare or pheasant; sometimes 
jerks a small parcel or newspaper to the door of a public 
house; and sometimes, with knowing leer and words of sly 
import, hands to some half blushing, half laughing house- 
maid an odd-shaped hillet-doux from some rustic admirer. 
As the coach rattles through the village, everyone runs to the 
window, and you have glances on every side of fresh country 
faces, and blooming giggling girls. At the corners are assem- 
bled juntos of village idlers and wise men, who take their 
stations there for the important purpose of seeing com- 
pany pass; but the sagest knot is generally at the blacksmith's3 
to whom the passing of the coach is an event fruitful of much 
speculation. The smith, with the horse's heel in his lap, 
pauses as the vehicle whirls by; the cyclops round the anvil 
suspend their ringing hammers, and suffer the iron to grow 
cool; and the sooty specter in brown paper cap, laboring at 
the bellows, leans on the handle for a moment, and permits 
the asthmatic engine to heave a long-drawn sigh, while he 



156 THE 8KETCH-B00K. 

glares through the murky smoke and sulphureous gleams of 
the smithy. 

Perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more 
than usual animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if 
everybody was in good looks and good spirits. Game, poultry, 
and other luxuries of the table, were in brisk circulation in 
the villages; the grocers', butchers', and the fruiterers' shops 
were thronged with customers. The housewives were stirring 
briskly about, putting their dwellings in order; and the glossy 
branches of holly, with their bright red berries, began to 
appear at the windows. The scene brought to mind an old 
writer's account of Christmas preparations: " Now capons 
and hens, besides turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and 
mutton — must all die — for in twelve days a multitude of peo- 
ple will not be fed with little. Now plums and spice, sugar 
and honey, square it among pies and broth. Now or never 
must music be in tune, for the youth must dance and sing to 
get them a heat, while the aged sit by the fire. The country 
maid leaves half her market, and must be sent again, if she 
forgets a pack of cards on Christmas eve. Great is the con- 
tention of Holly and Ivy, whether master or dame wears the 
breeches. Dice and cards benefit the butler; and if the cook 
do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his fingers." 

I was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation by a shout 
from my little traveling companions. They had been look- 
ing out of the coach windows for the last few miles, recog- 
nizing every tree and cottage as they approached home, and 
now there was a general burst of joy — "There's John! and 
there's old Carlo! and there's Bantam! " cried the happy little 
rogues, clapping their hands. 

At the end of a lane there was an old sober-looking servant 
in livery, waiting for them; he was accompanied by a super- 
annuated pointer, and by the redoubtable Bantam, a little 
old rat of a pony, with a shaggy mane and long rusty tail, who 
stood dozing quietly by the roadside, little dreaming of the 
bustling times that awaited him. 

I was pleased to see the fondness with which the little fel- 
lows leaped about the steady old footman, and hugged the 
pointer, who wriggled his whole body for joy. But Bantam 
was the great object of interest; all wanted to mount him 
at once, and it was with some difficulty that John arranged 
that they should ride by turns, and the eldest should ride 
first. 



THE STAGE-COACH. 157 

Off they set at last; one on the pony, with the dog bonnd- 
ing and barking before him, and the others holding John^s 
hands; both talking at once, and overpowering him with ques- 
tions about home, and with school anecdotes. I looked after 
them with a feeling in which I do not know whether pleasure 
or melancholy predominated; for I was reminded of those 
days when, like them, I had neither known care nor sorrow, 
and a holiday was the summit of earthly felicity. We 
stopped a few minutes afterward, to water the horses; and on 
resuming our route, a turn of the road brought us in sight of 
a neat country seat. I could just distinguish the forms of a 
lady and two young girls in the portico, and I saw my little 
comrades, with Bantam, Carlo, and old John, trooping 
along the carriage road. I leaned out of the coach window, 
in hopes of witnessing the happy meeting, but a grove of 
trees shut it from my sight. 

In the evening we reached a village where I had determined 
to pass the night. As we drove into the great gateway of the 
inn, I saw, on one side, the light of a rousing kitchen fire 
beaming through a window. I entered, and admired, for the 
hundredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, and 
broad honest enjoyment, the kitchen of an English inn. It 
was of spacious dimensions, hung round with copper and tin 
vessels highly polished, and decorated here and there with a 
Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and flitches of bacon were 
suspended from the ceiling; a smokejack made its ceaseless 
clanking beside the fireplace, and a clock ticked in one 
corner. A well-scoured deal table extended along one side of 
the kitchen, with a cold round of beef, and other hearty 
viands, upon it, over which two foaming tankards of ale 
seemed mounting guard. Travelers of inferior order were 
preparing to attack this stout repast, whilst others sat smok- 
ing and gossiping over their ale on two high-backed oaken 
settles beside the fire. Trim housemaids were hurrying back- 
ward and forward, under the direction of a fresh bustling 
landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange 
a flippant word, and have a rall3dng laugh, with the group 
round the fire. The scene completely realized Poor Eobin's 
humble idea of the comforts of midwinter: 

" Now trees their leafy hats do bare 
To reverence Winter's silver hair ; 
A handsome hostess, merry host, 
A pot of ale and now a toast, 



158 THE SKETCH-BOOK, 

Tobacco and a good coal fire, 

Are things this season doth require." * 

I had not been long at the inn when a post-chaise drove up 
to the door. A young gentleman stepped out, and by the 
light of the lamps I caught a glimpse of a countenance which 
I thought I knew. I moved forward to get a nearer view, 
when his eye caught mine. I was not mistaken; it was 
Frank Bracebridge, a sprightly, good-humored young fellow, 
with whom I had once traveled on the Continent. Our meet- 
ing was extremely cordial, for the countenance of an old fel- 
low-traveler always brings up the recollection of a thousand 
pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excellent jokes. To dis- 
cuss all these in a transient interview at an inn was impossi- 
ble; and finding that I was not pressed for time, and was 
merely making a tour of observation, he insisted that I should 
give him a day or two at his father's country seat, to which 
he was going to pass the holidays, and which lay at a few 
miles' distance. " It is better than eating a solitary Christ- 
mas dinner at an inn," said he, " and I can assure you of a 
hearty welcome, in something of the old-fashioned style.'' 
His reasoning was cogent, and I must confess the preparation 
I had seen for universal festivity and social enjoyment had 
made me feel a little impatient of my loneliness. I closed, 
therefore, at once with his invitation; the chaise drove up to 
the door, and in a few moments I was on my way to the 
family mansion of the Bracebridges. 



CHEISTMAS EVE. 

Saint Francis and Saint Benedight 
Blesse this house from wicked wight ; 
From the night-mare and the goblin, 
That is hight good fellow Robin ; 
Keep it from all evil spirits, 
Fairies, weazles, rats, and ferrets : 

From curfew-time 

To the next prime. 

— Cartwright. 

It was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our 
chaise whirled rapidly over the frozen ground; the postboy 
smacked his whip incessantly, and a part of the time his horses 

* "Poor Robin's Almanack," 1694. 



CEBISTMAS EYE. 159 

were on a gallop. " He knows where he is going/' said my 
companion, laughing, " and is eager to arrive in time for 
some of the merriment and good cheer of the servants' hall. 
My father, you must know, is a bigoted devotee of the old 
school, and prides himself upon keeping up something of old 
English hospitality. He is a tolerable specimen of what you 
will rarely meet with nowadays in its purity — the old Eng- 
lish country gentlemen; for our men of fortune spend so 
much of their time in town, and fashion is carried so much 
into the country, that the strong, rich peculiarities of ancient 
rural life are almost polished away. My father, however, from 
early years, took honest Peacham * for his text-book, instead 
of Chesterfield; he determined in his own mind that there was 
no condition more truly honorable and enviable than that of 
a country gentleman on his paternal lands, and therefore 
passes the whole of his time on his estate. He is a strenuous 
advocate for the revival of the old rural games and holiday 
observances, and is deeply read in the writers, ancient and 
modem, who have treated on the subject. Indeed, his favor- 
ite range of reading is among the authors who flourished at 
3east two centuries since; who, he insists, wrote and thought 
more like true Englishmen than any of their successors. He 
even regrets sometimes that he had not been born a few cen- 
turies earlier, when England was itself, and had its peculiar 
manners and customs. As he lives at some distance from the 
main road, in rather a lonely part of the country, without 
any rival gentry near him, he has that most enviable of all 
blessings to an Englishman, an opportunity of indulging the 
bent of his own humor without molestation. Being repre- 
sentative of the oldest family in the neighborhood, and a great 
part of the peasantry being his tenants, he is much looked 
up to, and in general is known simply by the appellation of 
' The Squire,' a title which has been accorded to the head of 
the family since time immemorial. I think it best to give you 
these hints about my worthy old father to prepare you for 
any little eccentricities that might otherwise appear absurd." 
"We had passed for some time along the wall of a park, and 
at length the chaise stopped at the gate. It was in a heavy, 
magnificent old style, of iron bars, fancifully wrought at top 
into flourishes and flowers. The huge square columns that 
supported the gate was surmounted by the family crest. Close 

*Peacham's " Complete Gentleman," 1632. 



160 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

adjoining was the porter's lodge, sheltered under dark fir 
trees, and almost buried in shrubbery. 

The postboy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded 
through the still frosty air, and was answered by the distant 
barking of dogs, with which the mansion-house seemed gar- 
risoned. An old woman immediately appeared at the gate. 
As the moonlight fell strongly upon her, I had a full view of 
a little primitive dame, dressed very much in antique taste, 
with a neat kerchief and stomacher, and her silver hair peep- 
ing from under a cap of snowy whiteness. She came cour- 
tesying forth with many expi-essions of simple joy at seeing 
her young master. Her husband, it seemed, was up at the 
house keeping Christmas eve in the servant's hall; they could 
not do without him, as he was the best hand at a song and 
story in the household. 

My friend proposed that we should alight and walk through 
the park to the hall, which was at no great distance, while the 
chaise should follow on. Our road wound through a noble 
avenue of trees, among the naked branches of which the moon 
glittered as she rolled through the deep vault of a cloudless 
sky. The lawn beyond was sheeted with a light covering of 
snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams 
caught a frosty crystal; and at a distance might be seen a 
thin, transparent vapor stealing up from the low grounds, 
and threatening gradually to shroud the landscape. 

My companion looked round him with transport. " How 
often," said he, " have I scampered up this avenue on return- 
ing home on school vacations! How often have I played 
under these trees when a boy! I feel a degree of filial rever- 
ence for them, as we look up to those who have cherished us 
in childhood. My father was always scrupulous in exacting 
our holidays, and having us around Mm on family festivals. 
He used to direct and superintend our games with the strict- 
ness that some parents do the studies of their children. He 
was very particular that we should play the old English games 
according to their original form, and consulted old books for 
precedent and authority for every ' merrie disport '; yet, I 
assure you, there never was pedantry so delightful. It was 
the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children 
feel that home was the happiest place in the world, and I 
value this delicious home feeling as one of the choicest gifts 
a parent could bestow." 

We were interrupted by the clamor of a troop of dogs of 



CHBISTMAS EVSJ. 161 

all sorts and sizes, " mongrel^ puppy, whelp, and hound, and 
curs of low degree," that, disturbed by the ringing of the por- 
ter's bell and the rattling of the chaise, came bounding open- 
mouthed across the lawn. 

'" The little dogs and all, 
Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me ! ' " 

cried Bracebridge, laughing. At the sound of his voice, the 
bark was changed into a yelp of delight, and in a moment he 
was surrounded and almost overpowered by the caresses of the 
faithful animals. 

We had now come in full view of the old family mansion, 
partly thrown in deep shadow, and partly lit up by the cold 
moonshine. It was an irregular building of some magnitude, 
and seemed to be of the architecture of different periods. 
One wing was evidently very ancient, with heavy, stone- 
shafted bow windows jutting out and overrun with ivy, from 
among the foliage of which the small, diamond-shaped panes 
of glass glittered with the moonbeams. The rest of the house 
was in the French taste of Charles II /s time, having been 
repaired and altered, as my friend told me, by one of his an- 
cestors who returned with that monarch at the Restoration. 
The grounds about the house were laid out in the old formal 
manner of artificial flower-beds, clipped shrubberies, raised 
terraces, and heavy stone balustrades, ornamented with urns, 
a leaden statue or two, and a jet of water. The old gentleman, 
I was told, was extremely careful to preserve this obsolete 
finery in all its original state. He admired this fashion in 
gardening; it had an air of magnificence, was courtly and 
noble, and befitting good old family style. The boasted imita- 
tion of nature in modern gardening had sprung up with 
modem republican notions, but did not suit a monarchical 
government — ^it smacked of the leveling system. I could not 
help smiling at this introduction of politics into gardening, 
though I expressed some apprehension that I should find the 
old gentleman rather intolerant in his creed. Frank assured 
me, however, that it was almost the only instance in which he 
had ever heard his father meddle with politics; and he be- 
lieved he had got this notion from a member of Parliament 
who once passed a few weeks with him. The squire was glad 
of any argument to defend his clipped yew trees and formal 
terraces, which had been occasionally attacked by modern 
landscape gardeners. 



162 TSE 8KBTCB-B00K. 

As we approached the house we heard the sound of music, 
and now and then a burst of laughter, from one end of the 
building. This, Bracebridge said, must proceed from the ser- 
vants' hall, where a great deal of revelry was permitted, and 
even encouraged, by the squire, throughout the twelve days of 
Christmas, provided everything was done conformably to 
ancient usage. Here were kept up the old games of hoodman 
blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, 
bob-apple, and snap-dragon; the Yule clog and Christmas 
candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe, with its white 
berries, hung up, to the imminent peril of all the pretty 
housemaids.* 

So intent were the servants upon their sports that we had 
to ring repeatedly before we could make ourselves heard. On 
our arrival being announced, the squire came out to receive 
us, accompanied by his two other sons — one a young ofhcer 
in the army, home on leave of absence; the other an Oxonian, 
just from the university. The squire was a fine, healthy- 
looking old gentleman, with silver hair curling lightly round 
an open, florid countenance, in which a physiognomist, with 
the advantage, like myself, of a previous hint or two, might 
discover a singular mixture of whim and benevolence. 

The family meeting was warm and affectionate; as the 
evening was far advanced, the squire would not permit us to 
change our traveling dresses, but ushered us at once to the 
company, which was assembled in a large, old-fashioned hall. 
It was composed of different branches of a numerous family 
connection, where there were the usual proportion of old 
uncles and aunts, comfortable married dames, superannuated 
spinsters, blooming country cousins, half-fledged striplings, 
and bright- eyed boarding school hoydens. They were vari- 
ously occupied — some at a round game of cards, others con- 
versing round the fireplace; at one end of the hall was a 
group of the young folks, some nearly grown up, othere of 
a more tender and budding age, fully engrossed by a merry 
game; and a profusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, 
and tattered dolls about the floor showed traces of a troop 
of little fairy beings, who, having frolicked through a happy 
day, had been carried ofl to slumber through a peaceful night. 

* The mistletoe is still hung up in farmhouses and kitchens, at Christ- 
mas ; and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under 
it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all 
plucked, the privilege ceases. 



CEBI8TMA8 EVE. 163 

While the mutual greetings were going on between young 
Bracebridge and his relatives^ I had time to scan the apart- 
ment. I have called it a hall, for it had certainly been in 
old times, and the squire had evidently endeavored to restore 
it to something of its primitive state. Over the heavy., pro- 
jecting fireplace was suspended a picture of a warrior in 
armor, standing by a white horse, and on the opposite wall 
hung a helmet, buckler, and lance. At one end an enormous 
pair of antlers were inserted in the wall, the branches serv- 
ing as hooks on which to suspend hats, whips, and spurs; and 
in the corners of the apartment were fowling pieces, fishing 
rods, and other sporting implements. The furniture was of 
the cumbrous workmanship of former days, though some ar- 
ticles of modern convenience had been added, and the oaken 
floor had been carpeted; so that the whole presented an odd 
mixture of parlor and hall. 

The grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming 
fireplace, to make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of 
which was an enormous log, glowing and blazing, and send- 
ing forth a vast volume of light and heat; this I understood 
was the yule clog, which the squire was particular in having 
brought in and illumined on a Christmas eve, according to 
ancient custom.* 

It was really delightful to see the old squire seated in his 
hereditary elbow-chair by the hospitable fireside of his ances- 

* The yule clog is a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a tree, 
brought into the house with great ceremony, on Christmas eve, laid in 
the fireplace, and lighted with the brand of last year's clog. While it 
lasted, there was great drinking, singing, and telling of tales. Some- 
times it was accompanied by Christmas candles ; but in the cottages, the 
only light was from the ruddy blaze of the great wood fire. The yule 
clog was to burn all night : if it went out, it was considered a sign of ill 
luck. 

Herrick mentions it in one of his songs : 

" Come bring with a noise, 

My merrie, merrie boys, 
The Christmas Log to the firing ; 

Whilst my good dame she 

Bids ye all be free, 
And drink to your hearts desiring.'* 

The yule clog is still burnt in many farmhouses and kitchens in Eng- 
land, particularly in the north ; and there are several superstitions con- 
nected with it among the peasantry. If a squinting person come to the 
house while it is burning, or a person barefooted, it is considered an ill 
omen. The brand remaining from the yule clog is carefully put away 
to light the next year's Christmas fire. 



164 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

tors, and looking around him like the sun of a system, beam- 
ing warmth and gladness to every heart. Even the very dog 
that lay stretched at his feet, as he lazily shifted his position 
and yawned, would look fondly up in his master's face, wag 
his tail against the floor, and stretch himself again to sleep, 
confident of kindness and protection. There is an emanation 
from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be de- 
scribed, but is immediately felt, and puts the stranger at once 
at his ease. I had not been seated many minutes by the com- 
fortable hearth of the worthy old cavalier before I found my- 
self as much at home as if I had been one of the family. 

Supper was announced shortly after our arrival. It was 
seiwed up in a spacious oaken chamber, the panels of which 
shone with wax, and around which were several family 
portraits decorated with holly and ivy. Besides the accus- 
tomed lights, two great wax tapers, called Christmas candles, 
wreathed with greens, were placed on a highly polished 
beaufet among the family plate. The table was abundantly 
spread with substantial fare; but the squire made his sup- 
per of frumenty, a dish made of wheat cakes boiled in milk 
with rich spices, being a standing dish in old times for Christ- 
mas eve. I was happy to find my old friend, mince pie, in the 
retinue of the feast; and, finding him to be perfectly ortho- 
dox, and that I need not be ashamed of my predilection, I 
greeted him with all the warmth wherewith we usually greet 
an old and very genteel acquaintance. 

The mirth of the company was greatly promoted by the 
humors of an eccentric personage whom Mr. Bracebridge 
always addressed with the quaint appellation of Master 
Simon. He was a tight, brisk little man, with the air of an 
arrant old bachelor. His nose was shaped like the bill of a 
parrot, his face slightly pitted with the smallpox, with a dry, 
perpetual bloom on it, like a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. He 
had an eye of great quickness and vivacity, with a drollery 
and lurking waggery of expression that was irresistible. He 
was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very much in sly 
jokes and inuendoes with the ladies, and making infinite mer- 
riment by harping upon old themes, which, unfortunately, 
my ignorance of the family chronicles did not permit me to 
enjoy. It seemed to be his great delight during supper to 
keep a young girl next him in a continual agony of stifled 
laughter, in spite of her awe of the reproving looks of her 
mother, who sat opposite. Indeed, he was the idol of the 



GHRISTMAS EVE. 165 

younger part of the company, who laughed at everything he 
said or did and at every turn of his countenance. I conld not 
wonder at it, for he must have heen a miracle of accomplish- 
ments in their eyes. He could imitate Punch and Judy; 
make an old woman of his hand, with the assistance of a 
burnt cork and pocket handkerchief; and cut an orange into 
such a ludicrous caricature, that the young folks were ready 
to die with laughing. 

I was let briefly into his history by Frank Bracebridge. He 
was an old bachelor of a small independent income, which, 
by careful management, was sufficient for all his wants. He 
revolved through the family system like a vagrant comet 
in its orbit, sometimes visiting one branch and sometimes 
another quite remote, as is often the case with gentlemen of 
extensive connections and small fortunes in England. He 
had a chirping, buoyant disposition, always enjoying the pres- 
ent moment, and his frequent change of scene and company 
prevented his acquiring those rusty, unaccommodating habits 
with which old bachelors are so uncharitably charged. He 
was a complete family chronicle, being versed in the gene- 
alogy, history, and intermarriages of the whole house of 
Bracebridge, which made him a great favorite with the old 
folks; he was a beau of all the elder ladies and superannuated 
spinsters, among whom he was habitually considered rather 
a young fellow, and he was master of the revels among the 
children; so that there was not a more popular being in the 
sphere in which he moved than Mr. Simon Bracebridge. Of 
late years he had resided almost entirely with the squire, to 
whom he had become a factotum, and whom he particularly 
delighted by jumping with his humor in respect to old times, 
and by having a scrap of an old song to suit every occasion. 
We had presently a specimen of his last-mentioned talent; 
for no sooner was supper removed, and spiced wines and 
other beverages peculiar to the season introduced, than Mas- 
ter Simon was called on for a good old Christmas song. He 
bethought himself for a moment, and then, with a sparkle of 
the eye, and a voice that was by no means bad, excepting that 
it ran occasionally into a falsetto, like the notes of a split 
reed, he quavered forth a quaint old ditty: 

" Now Christmas is come, 

Let us beat up the drum, 
And call all our neighbours together ; 

And when they appear. 

Let us make such a cheer, 
As will keep out the wind and the weather," etc. 



166 TEE 8KET0B-B00K. 

The supper had disposed everyone to gayety, and an old 
harper was summoned from the servants' hall, where he had 
been strumming all the evening, and to all appearance com- 
forting himself with some of the squire's home-brewed. He 
was a kind of hanger-on, I was told, of the establishment, and 
though ostensibly a resident of the village, was oftener to be 
found in the squire's kitchen than his own home, the old 
gentleman being fond of the sound of " Harp in Hall." 

The dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one; 
some of the older folks joined in it, and the squire himself 
figured down several couple with a partner with whom he 
affirmed he had danced at every Christmas for nearly half a 
century. Master Simon, who seemed to be a kind of connect- 
ing link between the old times and the new, and to be 
withal a little antiquated in the taste of his accomplishments, 
evidently piqued himself on his dancing, and was endeavor- 
ing to gain credit by the heel and toe, rigadoon, and other 
graces of the ancient school; but he had unlucldly assorted 
himself with a little romping girl from boarding school, who, 
by her wild vivacity, kept him continually on the stretch, and 
defeated all his sober attempts at elegance. Such are the ill- 
sorted matches to which antique gentlemen are unfortunately 
prone! 

The young Oxonian, on the contrary, had led out one of his 
maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played a thousand little 
knaveries with impunity; he was full of practical jokes, and 
his delight was to tease his aunts and cousins; yet, like all 
madcap youngsters, he was a universal favorite among the 
women. The most interesting couple in the dance was the 
young officer and a ward of the squire's, a beautiful, blushing 
girl of seventeen. From several shy glances which I had 
noticed in the course of the evening, I suspected there was a 
little kindness growing up between them; and, indeed, the 
young soldier was just the hero to captivate a romantic girl. 
He was tall, slender, and handsome; and, like most young 
British officers of late years, had picked up various small ac- 
complishments on the Continent — he could talk French and 
Italian, draw landscapes, sing very tolerably, dance divinely; 
but, above all, he had been wounded at Waterloo. What girl 
of seventeen, well read in poetry and romance, could resist 
such a mirror of chivalry and perfection? 

The moment the dance was over he caught up a guitar, 
and, lolling against the old marble fireplace, in an attitude 



CHBISTMA8 EYE. 167 

which I am half inclined to suspect was studied, began the 
little French air of the Troubadour. The squire, however, 
exclaimed against having anything on Christmas eve but good 
old English; upon which the young minstrel, casting up his 
eye for a moment, as if in an effort of memory, struck into 
another strain, and with a charming air of gallantry gave 
Herrick^s "Mght-Piece to Julia": 

" Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, 
The shooting stars attend thee, 

And the elves also, 

Whose little eyes glow 
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. 

" No Will-o'-th'-Wisp mislight thee ; 
Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee ; 

But on, on thy way. 

Not making a stay, 
Since ghost there is none to affright thee : 

♦' Then let not the dark thee cumber ; 
What though the moon does slumber, 

The stars of the night 

Will lend thee their light, 
Like tapers clear without number. 

*' Then, Julia, let me woo thee, 
Thus, thus to come unto me : 
And when I shall meet 
Thy silvery feet, 
My soul I'll pour into thee." 

The song might or might not have been intended in com- 
pliment to the fair Julia, for so I found his partner was called; 
she, however, was certainly unconscious of any such applica- 
tion, for she never looked at the singer, but kept her eyes cast 
upon the floor; her face was suffused, it is true, with a beau- 
tiful blush, and there was a gentle heaving of the bosom, but 
all that was doubtless caused by the exercise of the dance; 
indeed, so great was her indifference, that she was amusing 
herself with plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hot-house 
flowers, and by the time the song was concluded the nosegay 
lay in ruins on the floor. 

The party now broke up for the night, with the kind- 
hearted old custom of shaking hands. As I passed through 
the hall on my way to my chamber, the dying embers of the 
yule clog still sent forth a dusky glow; and had it not been 
the season when " no spirit dares stir abroad," I should have 
been half tempted to steal from my room at midnight and 



168 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

peep whether the fairies might not be at their revels about 
the hearth. 

My chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the pon- 
derous furniture of which might have been fabricated in the 
days of the giants. The room was paneled, with cornices 
of heavy carved work, in which flowers and grotesque faces 
were strangely intermingled, and a row of black-looking por- 
traits stared mournfully at me from the walls. The bed was 
of rich, though faded, damask, with a lofty tester, and stood 
in a niche opposite a bow window. I had scarcely got into 
bed when a strain of music seemed to break forth in the air 
just below the window. I listened, and found it proceeded 
from a band, which I concluded to be the waits from some 
neighboring village. They went round the house, playing 
under the windows. I drew aside the curtains to hear them 
more distinctly. The moonbeams fell through the upper part 
of the casement, partially lighting up the antiquated apart- 
ment. The sounds, as they receded, became more soft and 
aerial, and seemed to accord with quiet and moonlight. I 
listened and listened — they became more and more tender 
and remote, and, as they gradually died away, my head sunk 
upon the pillow, and I fell asleep. 



CHEISTMAS DAY. 

Dark and dull niglit flie hence away, 
And give tlie honour to this day 
That sees December turn'd to May. 

Why does the chilling winter's morne 
Smile like a field beset with corn ? 
Or smell like to a meade new-shorne, 
Thus on a sudden ? — come and see 
The cause, why things thus fragrant be. 

— Herrick. 

When I woke the next morning it seemed as if all the 
events of the preceding evening had been a dream, and noth- 
ing but the identity of the ancient chamber convinced me of 
their reality. While I lay musing on my pillow, I heard the 
sound of little feet pattering outside of the door and a whis- 
pering consultation. Presently a choir of small voices chanted 
forth an old Christmas carol, the burden of which was: 

"Rejoice, our Saviour he was born 
On Christmas day in the morning.** 



CHBI8TMAS DAY. 169 

I rose softly, slipped on my clothes, opened the door sud- 
denly, and beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups 
that a painter could imagine. It consisted of a boy and two 
girls, the eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. 
They were going the rounds of the house, singing at every 
chamber door, but my sudden appearance frightened them 
into mute bashfulness. They remained for a moment play- 
ing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing 
a shy glance from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one 
impulse, they scampered away, and as they turned an angle of 
the gallery I heard them laughing in triumph at their escape. 

Everything conspired to produce kind and happy feelings 
in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality. The window 
of my chamber looked out upon what in summer would have 
been a beautiful landscape. There was a sloping lawn, a fine 
stream winding at the foot of it, and a tract of park beyond, 
with noble clumps of trees and herds of deer. At a distance 
was a neat hamlet, with the smoke from the cottage chimneys 
hanging over it; and a church, with its dark spire in strong 
relief against the clear cold sky. The house was surrounded 
with evergreens, according to the English custom, which 
would have given almost an appearance of summer, but the 
morning was extremely frosty; the light vapor of the pre- 
ceding evening had been precipitated by the cold, and cov- 
ered all the trees and every blade of grass with its fine crystal- 
lizations. The rays of a bright morning sun had a dazzling 
effect among the glittering foliage. A robin perched upon 
the top of a mountain ash, that hung its clusters of red berries 
just before my window, was basking himself in the sunshine, 
and piping a few querulous notes; and a peacock was dis- 
playing all the glories of his train, and strutting with the 
pride and gravity of a Spanish grandee on the terrace-walk 
below. 

I had scarcely dressed myself when a servant appeared to 
invite me to family prayers. He showed me the way to a 
small chapel in the old wing of the house, where I found the 
principal part of the family already assembled in a kind of 
gallery, furnished with cushions, hassocks, and large prayer 
books; the servants were seated on benches below. The old 
gentleman read prayers from a desk in front of the gallery, 
and Master Simon acted as clerk and made the responses; and 
I must do him the justice to say that he acquitted himself 
with great gravity and decorum. 



170 THE SKETCH-BOOK 

The service was followed by a Christmas carol, which Mr. 
Bracebridge himself had constructed from a poem of his fav- 
T»rite author, Herrick; and it had been adapted to a church 
melody by Master Simon. As there were several good voices 
among the household, the effect was extremely pleasing; but 
I was particularly gratified by the exaltation of heart and 
sudden sally of grateful feeling with which the worthy squire 
delivered one stanza, his eye glistening, and his voice ram- 
bling out of all the bounds of time and tune: 

" 'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth 
With guiltless mirth, 
And giv'st me Wassaile bowles to drink 
Spic'd to the brink : 
•I 

" Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand 
That soiles my land : 
And giv'st me for my bushell sowne, 
Twice ten for one . " 

I afterward understood that early morning service was 
read on every Sunday and saint's day throughout the year, 
either by Mr. Bracebridge or some member of the family. It 
was once almost universally the case at the seats of the no- 
bility and gentry of England, and it is much to be regretted 
that the custom is falling into neglect; for the dullest observer 
must be sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in 
those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful 
form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the key- 
note to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to 
harmony. 

Our breakfast consisted of what the squire denominated 
true old English fare. He indulged in some bitter lamenta- 
tions over modern breakfasts of tea and toast, which he cen- 
sured as among the causes of modern effeminacy and weak 
nerves, and the decline of old English heartiness; and though 
he admitted them to his table to suit the palates of his guests, 
yet there was a brave display of cold meats, wine, and ale on 
the sideboard. 

After breakfast I walked about the grounds with Frank 
Bracebridge and Master Simon, or Mr. Simon, as he was called 
by everybody but the squire. We were escorted by a num- 
ber of gentlemen-like dogs, that seemed loungers about the 
establishment; from the frisky spaniel to the steady old stag- 
hound — the last of which was of a race that had been in the 



CHRISTMAS DAY. IVl 

family time out of mind — tliey were all obedient to a dog 
whistle which himg to Master Simon's buttonhole, and in the 
midst of their gambols would glance an eye occasionally upon 
a small switch he carried in his hand. 

The old mansion had a still more venerable look in the 
yellow sunshine than by pale moonlight; and I could not but 
feel the force of the squire's idea, that the formal terraces, 
heavily molded balustrades, and clipped yew trees carried 
with them an air of proud aristocracy. 

There appeared to be an unusual number of peacocks about 
the place, and I was making some remarks upon what I 
termed a flock of them that were basking under a sunny wall, 
when I was gently corrected in my phraseology by Master 
Simon, who told me that, according to the most ancient and 
approved treatise on hunting, I must say a muster of peacocks. 
" In the same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, 
^^ we say a flight of doves or swallows, a bevy of quails, a herd 
of deer, of wrens, or cranes, a skulk of foxes, or a building of 
rooks." He went on to inform me that, according to Sir 
Anthony Fitzherbert, we ought to ascribe to this bird " both 
understanding and glory; for, being praised, he will presently 
set up his tail, chiefly against the sun, to the intent you may 
the better behold the beauty thereof. But at the fall of the 
leaf, when his tail falleth, he will mourn and hide himself in 
corners till his tail come again as it was." 

I could not help smiling at this display of small erudition 
on so whimsical a subject; but I found that the peacocks were 
birds of some consequence at the hall; for Frank Bracebridge 
informed me that they were great favorites with his father, 
who was extremely careful to keep up the breed, partly be- 
cause they belonged to chivalry, and were in great request at 
the stately banquets of the olden time, and partly because 
they had a pomp and magnificence about them highly be- 
coming an old family mansion. Nothing, he was accustomed 
to say, had an air of greater state and dignity than a peacock 
perched upon an antique stone balustrade. 

Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an appoint- 
ment at the parish church with the village choristers, who 
were to perform some music of his selection. There was 
something extremely agreeable in the cheerful flow of animal 
spirits of the little man; and I confess I had been somewhat 
surprised at his apt quotations from authors who certainly 
were not in the range of every-day reading. I mentioned this 



112 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

last circumstance to Frank Bracebridge, who told me with 
a smile that Master Simon's whole stock of erudition was con- 
fined to some half a dozen old authors which the squire had 
put into his hands, and which he read over and over when- 
ever he had a studious fit, as he sometimes had on a rainy day 
or a long winter evening. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's " Book 
of Husbandry/' Markham's " Country Contentments/' " The 
Tretyse of Hunting" (by Sir Thomas Cockayne, Knight), 
Isaac Walton's " Angler," and two or three more such ancient 
worthies of the pen were his standard authorities; and, like 
all men who know but a few books, he looked up to them 
with a kind of idolatry, and quoted them on all occasions. 
As to his songs, they were chiefly picked out of old books in 
the squire's library, and adapted to tunes that were popular 
among the choice spirits of the last century. His practical ap- 
plication of scraps of literature, however, had caused him to 
be looked upon as a prodigy of book knowledge by all the 
grooms, huntsmen, and small sportsmen of the neighborhood. 
While we were talking we heard the distant toll of the 
village bell, and I was told that the squire was a little par- 
ticular in having his household at church on a Christmas 
morning, considering it a day of pouring out of thanks and 
rejoicing; for, as old Tusser observed: 

" At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal, 
And feast thy poor neighbours, the great with the small." 

" If you are disposed to go to church," said Frank Brace- 
bridge, " I can promise you a specimen of my cousin Simon's 
musical achievements. As the church is destitute of an organ, 
he has formed a band from the village amateurs, and estab- 
lished a musical club for their improvement; he has also 
sorted a choir, as he sorted my father's pack of hounds accord- 
ing to the directions of Jarvaise Markham, in his ^ Country 
Contentments '; for the bass he has sought out all the ^ deep, 
solemn mouths,' and for the tenor the ' loud ringing mouths,' 
among the country bumpkins; and for ' sweet mouths ' he 
has culled with curious taste among the prettiest lasses in 
the neighborhood; though these last, he afiirms, are the most 
difficult to keep in tune; your pretty female singer being ex- 
ceedingly wayward and capricious, and very liable to 
accident." 

As the morning, though frosty, was remarkably fine and 
clear^ the most of the family walked to the churchy which was 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 173 

a very old "building of gray stone, and stood near a village^ 
about half a mile from the park gate. Adjoining it was a low 
snug parsonage, which seemed coeval with the church. The 
front of it was perfectly matted with a yew tree, that had 
been trained against its walls, through the dense foliage of 
which, apertures had been formed to admit light into the 
small antique lattices. As we passed this sheltered nest, the 
parson issued forth and preceded us. 

I had expected to see a sleek well-conditioned pastor, such 
as is often found in a snug living in the vicinity of a rich 
patron^s table, but I was disappointed. The parson was a 
little, meager, black-looking man, with a grizzled wig that 
was too wide, and stood off from each ear; so that his head 
seemed to have shrunk away within it, like a dried filbert in 
its shell. He wore a rusty coat, with great skirts, and pock- 
ets that would have held the church Bible and prayer book: 
and his small legs seemed still smaller, from being planted 
in large shoes, decorated with enormous buckles. 

I was informed by Frank Bracebridge that the parson had 
been a chum of his father's at Oxford, and had received this 
living shortly after the latter had come to his estate. He 
was a complete black-letter hunter, and would scarcely read 
a work printed in the Eoman character. The editions of 
Caxton and Wynkin de Worde were his delight; and he was 
indefatigable in his researches after such old English writers 
as have fallen into oblivion from their worthlessness. In 
deference, perhaps, to the notions of Mr. Bracebridge, he had 
made diligent investigations into the festive rites and holiday 
customs of former times; and had been as zealous in the in- 
quiry, as if he had been a boon companion; but it was merely 
with that plodding spirit with which men of adust tempera- 
ment follow up any track of study, merely because it is de- 
nominated learning; indifferent to its intrinsic nature, 
whether it be the illustration of the wisdom, or of the 
ribaldry and obscenity of antiquity. He had pored over these 
old volumes so intensely, that they seemed to have been 
reflected into his countenance; which, if the face be indeed 
an index of the mind, might be compared to a title page of 
black-letter. 

On reaching the church porch, we found the parson rebuk- 
ing the gray-headed sexton for having used the mistletoe 
among the greens with which the church was decorated. It 
was^ he observed^ an unholy plant, profaned by having been 



174 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

used by the Druids in their mystic ceremonies; and though li 
might be innocently employed in the festive ornamenting of 
halls and kitchens^ yet it had been deemed by the Fathers of 
the Church as unhallowed, and totally unfit for sacred pur- 
poses. So tenacious was he on this point, that the poor sex- 
ton was obliged to strip down a great part of the humble 
trophies of his taste, before the parson would consent to enter 
upon the service of the day. 

The interior of the church was venerable, but simple; on 
the walls were several mural monuments of the Bracebridges, 
and Just beside the altar, was a tomb of ancient workman- 
ship, on which lay the effigy of a warrior in armor, with his 
legs crossed, a sign of his having been a Crusader. I was 
told it was one of the family who had signalized himself in the 
Holy Land, and the same whose picture hung over the fire- 
place in the hall. 

During service. Master Simon stood up in the pew, and 
repeated the responses very audibly; evincing that kind of 
ceremonious devotion punctually observed by a gentleman of 
the old school, and a man of old family connections. I ob- 
served, too', that he turned over the leaves of a folio prayer- 
book with something of a flourish, possibly to show off an 
enormous seal ring which enriched one of his fingers, and 
which had the look of a family relic. But he was evidently 
most solicitous about the musical part of the service, keeping 
his eye fixed intently on the choir, and beating time with 
much gesticulation and emphasis. 

The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most 
whimsical grouping of heads, piled one above the other, 
among which I particularly noticed that of the village tailor, 
a pale fellow with a retreating forehead and chin, who played 
on the clarionet, and seemed to have blown his face to a point; 
and there was another, a short pursy man, stooping and labor- 
ing at a bass viol, so as to show nothing but the top of a 
round bald head, like the Qgg of an ostrich. There were two 
or three pretty faces among the female singers, to which the 
keen air of a frosty morning had given a bright rosy tint: 
but the gentlemen choristers had evidently been chosen, 
like old Cremona fiddles, more for tone than looks; and as 
several had to sing from the same book, there were, cluster- 
ings of odd physiognomies, not unlike those groups of cherubs 
we sometimes see on country tombstones. 

The usual services of the choir were managed tolerably 



CHBISTMAS DAT. 1V6 

well, the vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the in- 
strumental, and some loitering fiddler now and then making 
up for lost time by traveling over a passage with prodigious 
celerity, and clearing more bars than the keenest fox hunter, 
to be in at the death. But the great trial was an anthem 
that had been prepared and arranged by Master Simon, and 
on which he had founded great expectation. Unluckily there 
was a blunder at the very outset — the musicians became flur- 
ried; Master Simon was in a fever; everything went on lamely 
and irregularly, until they came to a chorus beginning, " Now 
let us sing with one accord," which seemed to be a signal for 
parting company: all became discord and confusion; each 
shifted for himself, and got to the end as well, or, rather, as 
soon as he could; excepting one old chorister, in a pair of 
horn spectacles bestriding and pinching a long sonorous noee; 
who, happening to stand a little apart, and being wrapped up 
in his own melody, kept on a quavering course, wriggling his 
head, ogling his book, and winding all up by a nasal solo of 
at least three bars^ duration. 

The parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the rites and 
ceremonies of Christmas, and the propriety of observing it, 
not merely as a day of thanksgiving, but of rejoicing; support- 
ing the correctness of his opinions by the earliest usages of the 
Church, and enforcing them by the authorities of Theophilus 
of Cesarea., St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, 
and a cloud more of Saints and Fathers, from whom he made 
copious quotations. I was a little at a loss to perceive the 
necessity of such a mighty array of forces to maintain a point 
which no one present seemed inclined to dispute; but I soon 
found that the good man had a legion of ideal adversaries to 
contend with; having, in the course of his researches on the 
subject of Christmas, got completely embroiled in the sec- 
tarian controversies of the Eevolution, when the Puritans 
made such a fierce assault upon the ceremonies of the Church 
and poor old Christmas was driven out of the land by procla- 
mation of Parliament.* The worthy parson lived but with 
times past, and knew but little of the present. 

*From the Flying Eagle, a small Gazette, published December 
34, 1652 : " The House spent much time this day about the business of 
the Navy, for settling the affairs at sea, and before they rose, were pre- 
sented with a terrible remonstrance against Christmas day, grounded 
upon dirine Scriptures, 2 Cor. v. 16. 1 Cor. xv. 14, 17 ; and in honour 
of the Lord's Day, grounded upon these Scriptures, John xx. 1. Rev. i. 



1T6 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

Shut up among worm-eaten tomes in the retirement of his 
antiquated httle study^ the pages of old times were to him as 
the gazettes of the day; while the era of the Eevolution was 
mere modern history. He forgot that nearly two centuries 
had elapsed since the fiery persecution of poor mince pie 
throughout the land; when plum porridge was denounced as 
"mere popery/' and roast heef as anti-christian; and that 
Christmas had been brought in again triumphantly with the 
merry court of King Charles at the Eestoration. He kindled 
into warmth with the ardor of his contest, and the host of 
imaginary foes with whom he had to combat; he had a stub- 
bom conflict with old Prynne and two or three other forgotten 
champions of the Eound Heads, on the subject of Christmas 
festivity; and concluded by urging his hearers, in the most 
solemn and affecting manner, to stand to the traditional cus- 
toms of their fathers, and feast and make merry on this joy- 
ful anniversary of the Church. 

I have seldom known a sermon attended apparently with 
more immediate effects; for on leaving the church, the con- 
gregation seemed one and all possessed with the gayety of 
spirit so earnestly enjoined by their pastor. The elder folks 
gathered in knots in the churchyard, greeting and shaking 
hands; and the children ran about crying, " Ule! ule! " and 
repeating some uncouth rhymes,* which the parson, who had 
joined us, informed me had been handed down from days of 
yore. The villagers doffed their hats to the squire as he 
passed, giving him the good wishes of the season with every 
appearance of heartfelt sincerity, and were invited by him to 
the hall, to take something to keep out the cold of the 
weather; and I heard blessings uttered by several of the poor, 
which convinced me that, in the midst of his enjoyments, the 
worthy old cavalier had not forgotten the true Christmas 
virtue of charity. 

On our way homeward, his heart seemed overflowing with 
generous and happy feelings. As we passed over a rising 

10. Psalms, cxviii. 24. Lev. xxiii. 7, 11. Mark xv. 8. Psalms, Ixxxiv. 
10 ; in which Christmas is called Anti-Christ's masse, and those Masse- 
mongers and Papists who ohserve it, etc. In consequence of which Par- 
liament spent some time in consultation about the abolition of Christmas 
day, passed orders to that effect, and resolved to sit on the following day 
which was commonly called Christmas day." 

*"Ule! Ule! 

Three puddings in a pule ; 
Crack nuts and cry ule I " 



CHBI8TMAS DAT. HI 

ground which commanded something of a prospect, the sounds 
of rustic merriment now and then reached our ears; the 
squire paused for a few moments, and looked around with an 
air of inexpressible benignity. The beauty of the day was of 
itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy. ]!^otwithstanding 
the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless journey 
had acquired sufficient power to melt away the thin cover- 
ing of snow from every southern declivity, and bring out the 
living green which adorns an English landscape even in mid- 
winter. Large tracts of smiling verdure contrasted with the 
dazzling whiteness of the shaded slopes and hollows. Every 
sheltered bank, on which the broad rays rested, yielded it-s 
silver rill of cold and limpid water^ glittering through the 
dripping grass; and sent up slight exhalations to contribute 
to the thin haze that hung just above the surface of the earth. 
There was something truly cheering in this triumph of 
warmth and verdure over the frosty thraldom of winter; it 
was, as the squire observed, an emblem of Christmas hospi- 
tality, breaking through the chills of ceremony and selfish- 
ness, and thawing every heart into a flow. He pointed with 
pleasure to the indications of good cheer reeking from the 
chimneys of the comfortable farmhouses and low thatched 
cottages. ^^I love," said he, "to see this day well kept by 
rich and poor; it is a great thing to have one day in the year, 
at least, when you are sure of being welcome wherever you 
go, and of having, as it were, the world all thrown open to 
you; and I am almost disposed to join with poor Eobin, in his 
malediction on every churlish enemy to this honest festival: 

** * Those who at Christmas do repine, ^ 
And would fain hence despatch him, 
May they with old Duke Humphry dine, 
Or else may Squire Ketch catch him,' " 

The squire went on to lament the deplorable decay of the 
games and amusements which were once prevalent at this 
season among the lower orders, and countenanced by the 
higher; when the old halls of castles and manor-houses were 
thrown open at daylight; when the tables were covered with 
brawn, and beef, and humming ale; when the harp and the 
carol resounded all day long, and when rich and poor were 
alike welcome to enter and make merry.* '^ Our old games 

* " An Englisia gentleman at the opening of the great day, i. «., on 



178 THE sketch-book. 

and local customs/^ said he, " had a great effect in making the 
peasant fond of his home, and the promotion of them by the 
gentry made him fond of his lord. They made the times 
merrier, and kinder, and better, and I can truly say with one 
of our old poets, 

'* ' I like them well — the curious preciseness 
And all pretended gravity of tliose 
That seek to banish hence these harmless sports, 
Have thrust away much ancient honesty.' 

" The nation,^^ continued he, " is altered; we have almost 
lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. They have broken 
asunder from the higher classes, and seem to think their 
interests are separate. They have become too knowing, and 
begin to read newspapers, listen to alehouse politicians, and 
talk of reform. I think one mode to keep them in good 
humor in these hard times, would be for the nobility and 
gentry to pass more time on their estates, mingle more among 
the country people, and set the merry old English games 
going again." 

Such was the good squire's project for mitigating public 
discontent: and, indeed, he had once attempted to put his 
doctrine in practice, and a few years before he had kept open 
house during the holidays in the old style. The country 
people, however, did not understand how to play their parts 
in the scene of hospitality; many uncouth circumstances oe- 
curred; the manor was overrun by all the vagrants of the 
country, and more beggars drawn into the neighborhood in 
one week than the parish officers could get rid of in a year. 
Since then he had contented himself with inviting the decent 
part of the neighboring peasantry to call at the Hall on 
Christmas day, and with distributing beef, and bread, and 
ale, among the poor, that they might make merry in their 
own dwellings. 

We had not been long home, when the sound of music was 
heard from a distance. A band of country lads, without 
coats, their shirt sleeves fancifully tied with ribands, their 

Christmas day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours enter 
his hall by daybreak. The strong beer was broached, and the black 
jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, and nutmeg, and good 
Cheshire cheese. The Hackin (the great sausage) must be boiled by 
daybreak, or else two young men must take the maiden (*. e., the cook) 
by the arms and run her round the market place till she is shamed of 
her laziness." — Bound about our Sea- Goal Fire, 



CEBISTMAS BAY. 119 



hats decorated with greens, and clnbs in their hands, were 
seen advancing up the avenue, followed by a large number 
of villagers and peasantry. They stopped before the hall 
door, where the music struck up a peculiar air, and the lads 
performed a curious and intricate dance, advancing, retreat- 
ing, and striking their clubs together, keeping exact time to 
the music; while one, whimsically crowned with a fox's skin, 
the tail of which flaunted down his back, kept capering round 
the skirts of the dance, and rattling a Christmas-box with 
many antic gesticulations. 

The squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great interest 
and delight, and gave me a full account of its origin, which he 
traced to the times when the Romans held possession of the 
island; plainly proving that this was a lineal descendant of 
the sword dance of the ancients. " It was now," he said, 
" nearly extinct, but he had accidentally met with traces of 
it in the neighborhood, and had encouraged its revival; 
though, to tell the truth, it was too apt to be followed up by 
rough cudgel play, and broken heads, in the evening." 

After the dance was concluded, the whole party was enter- 
tained with brawn and beef, and stout home-brewed. The 
squire himself mingled among the rustics, and was received 
with awkward demonstrations of deference and regard. It 
is true, I perceived two or three of the younger peasants, as 
they were raising their tankards to their mouths, when the 
squire's back was turned, making something of a grimace, 
and giving each other the wink; but the moment they caught 
my eye they pulled grave faces, and were exceedingly de- 
mure. With Master Simon, however, they all seemed more 
at their ease. His varied occupations and amusements had 
made him well known throughout the neighborhood. He 
was a visitor at every farmhouse and cottage; gossiped with 
the farmers and their wives; romped with their daughters; 
and, like that type of a vagrant bachelor, the humble bee, 
tolled the sweets from all the rosy lips of the country round. 

The bashfulness of the guests soon gave way before good 
cheer and affability. There is something genuine and affec- 
tionate in the gayety of the lower orders, when it is excited 
by the bounty and familiarity of those above them; the warm 
glow of gratitude enters into their mirth, and a kind word 
or a small pleasantry frankly uttered by a patron, gladdens 
the heart of the dependant more than oil and wine. When 
the squire had retired, the merriment increased^ and there 



180 THE SKETGH-BOOR. 

I 

was much joking and laughter, particularly between Master 
Simon and a hale, ruddy-faced, white-headed farmer, who 
appeared to be the wit of the village; for I observed all his 
companions to wait with open mouths for his retorts, and 
burst into a gratuitous laugh before they could well under- 
stand them. 

The whole house indeed seemed abandoned to merriment: 
as I passed to my room to dress for dinner, I heard the sound 
of music in a small court, and looking through a window 
that commanded it, I perceived a band of wandering musi- 
cians, with pandean pipes and tamborine; a pretty coquettish 
housemaid was dancing a jig with a sma.rt country lad, while 
several of the other servants were looking on. In the midst 
of her sport, the girl caught a glimpse of my face at the win- 
dow, and coloring up, ran off with an air of roguish affected 
confusion. 

THE CHKISTMAS DINNEE. 

Lo, now is come our joyf ul'st feast ! 

Let every man be jolly, 
Each roome with yvie leaves is drest, 

And every post with holly. 
Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke, 

And Christmas blocks are burning ; 
Their ovens they with bak't meats choke, 
And all their spits are turning. 
Without the door let sorrow lie, 
And if, for cold, it hap to die, 
Wee'l bury 't in a Christmas pye. 
And evermore be merry. 

— Withers' ''Juvenilia.'* 

I HAD finished my toilet, and was loitering with Frank 
Bracebridge in the library, when we heard a distant thwack- 
ing sound, which he informed me was a signal for the serving 
up of the dinner. The squire kept up old customs in kitchen 
as well as hall; and the rolling-pin struck upon the dresser 
by the cook, summoned the servants to carry in the meats. 

" Just in this nick the cook knock'd thrice, 
And all the waiters in a trice 

His summons did obey ; 
Each serving man, with dish in hand, 
Marched boldly up, like our train band, 
Presented, and away." * 

* Sir John Suckling, 



THE CHBI8TMA8 BINNEB. 181 

The dinner was served up in the great hall, where the 
squire always held his Christmas banquet. A blazing crack- 
ling fire of logs had been heaped on to warm the spacious 
apartment, and the flame went sparkling and wreathing up 
the wide-mouthed chimney. The great picture of the Cru- 
sader and his white horse had been profusely decorated with 
greens for the occasion; and holly and ivy had likewise been 
wreathed round the helmet and weapons on the opposite wall, 
which I understood were the arms of the same warrior. I 
must own, by the bye, I had strong doubts about the authen- 
ticity of the painting and armor as having belonged to the 
Crusader, they certainly having the stamp of more recent 
days; but I was told that the painting had been so considered 
time out of mind; and that, as to the armor, it had been found 
in a lumber room, and elevated to its present situation by the 
squire, who at once determined it tO' be the armor of the 
family hero; and as he was absolute authority on all such 
subjects in his own household, the matter had passed into cur- 
rent acceptation. A sideboard was set out just under this 
chivalric trophy, on which was a display of plate that might 
have vied, at least in variety) v/ith Belshazzar's parade of the 
vessels of the temple; " flagons, cans, cups, beakers, goblets, 
basins, and ewers;" the gorgeous utensils of good companion- 
ship that had gradually accumulated tlirough many genera- 
tions of jovial housekeepers. Before these stood the two 
yule candles, beaming like two stars of the first magnitude; 
other lights were distributed in branches, and the whole array 
glittered like a firmament of silver. 

We were ushered into this banqueting scene with the sound 
of minstrelsy; the old harper being seated on a stool beside 
the fireplace, and twanging his instrument with a vast deal 
more power than melody. Never did Christmas board dis- 
play a more goodly and gracious assemblage of countenances; 
those who were not handsome, were, at least, happy; and 
happiness is a rare improver of your hard-favored visage. I 
always consider an old English family as well worth studying 
as a collection of Holbein^s portraits, or Albert Durer's prints. 
There is much antiquarian lore to be acquired; much knowl- 
edge of the physiognomies of former times. Perhaps it may 
be from having continually before their eyes those rows of old 
family portraits, with which the mansions of this country are 
stocked; certain it is, that the quaint features of antiquity 
are often most faithfully perpetuated in these ancient lines; 



182 THE SKSTCS-BOOK. 

and I have traced an old family nose through a whole picture 
gallery, legitimately handed down from generation to genera- 
tion, almost from the time of the Conquest. Something of 
th€ kind was to he ohserved in the worthy company around 
me. Many of their faces had evidently originated in a Gothic 
age, and been merely copied by succeeding generations; and 
there was one little girl, in particular, of staid demeanor, with 
a high Eoman nose, and an antique vinegar aspect, who was a 
great favorite of the squire's, being, as he said, a Bracebridge 
all over, and the very counterpart of one of his ancestors who 
figured in the court of Henry VIII. 

The parson said grace, which was not a short familiar one, 
such as is commonly addressed to the Deity in these uncere- 
monious days; but a long, courtly, well-worded one of the 
ancient school. There was now a pause, as if something was 
expected; when suddenly the butler entered the hall with 
some degree of bustle; he was attended by a servant on each 
side with a large wax-light, and bore a silver dish, on which 
was an enormous pig's head, decorated with rosemary, with a 
lemon in its mouth, which was placed with great formality at 
the head of the table. The moment this pageant made its 
appearance, the harper struck up a flourish; at the conclu- 
sion of which the young Oxonian, on receiving a hint from 
the squire, gave, with an air of th^ most comic gravity, an old 
carol, the first verse of which was as follows: 

' ' Caput apri def ero 
Reddens laudes Domino. 
The boar's head in hand bring I, 
With garlands gay and rosemary. 
I pray you all synge merily 
Qui estis in convivio." 

Though prepared to witness many of these little eccentrici- 
ties, from being apprized of the peculiar hobby of mine host; 
yet, I confess, the parade with which so odd a dish was intro- 
duced somewhat perplexed me, until I gathered from the con- 
versation of the squire and the parson, that it was meant to 
represent the bringing in of the boar's head — a dish formerly 
served up with much ceremony, and the sound of minstrelsy 
and song, at great tables on Christmas day. " I like the old 
custom," said the squire, " not merely because it is stately and 
pleasing in itself, but because it was observed at the college 
at Oxford, at which I was educated. When I hear the old 
song chanted, it brings to mind the time when I was young. 



TEE CHRISTMAS DINNER. 183 

and gamesome — and the noble old college hall — and my fel- 
low-students loitering about in their black gowns; many of 
whom, poor lads, are now in their graves! " 

The parson, however, whose mind was not haunted by such 
associations, and who was always more taken np with the text 
than the sentiment, objected to the Oxonian^s version of the 
carol; which he affirmed was different from that snng at col- 
lege. He went on, with the dry perseverance of a commenta- 
tor, to give the jcoUege reading, accompanied by sundry 
annotations; addressing himself at first to the company at 
large; but finding their attention gradually diverted to other 
talk, and other objects, he lowered his tone as his number of 
auditors diminished, until he concluded his remarks in an 
under voice, to a fat-headed old gentleman next him, who 
was silently engaged in the discussion of a huge plate full of 
turkey.* 

The table was literally loaded with good cheer, and pre- 
sented an epitome of country abundance, in this season of 
overflowing larders. A distingTushed post was allotted to 
" ancient sirloin," as mine host termed it; being, as he added, 
"the standard of old English hospitality, and a joint of 
goodly presence, and full of expectation." There were sev- 
eral dishes quaintly decorated, and which had evidently 

* The old ceremony of serving up the boar's head on Christmas day, 
is still observed in the hall of Queen's College, Oxford. I was favored 
by the parson with a copy of the carol as now sung, and as it may be 
acceptable to such of my readers as are curious in these grave and 
learned matters, I give it entire : 

*' The boar's head in hand bear I, 
Bedeck'd with bays and rosemary ; 
And I pray you, my masters, be merry, 
Quot estis in convivio. 
Caput apri defero, 
Reddens laudes Domino. 

** The boar's head, as I understand, 
Is the rarest dish in all this land. 
Which thus bedeck'd with a gay garland 
Let us servire cantico. 
Caput apri defero, etc. 

*' Our steward hath provided this 
In honour of the King of Bliss, 
[ [ Which on this day to be served is 
In Reginensi Atrio. 
Caput apri defero," 
etc., etc., etc. 



184 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

something traditional in their embellishments; but about 
which, as I did not like to appear over-curious, I asked no 
questions. 

I could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently deco- 
rated with peacock's feathers, in imitation of the tail of that 
bird, which overshadowed a considerable tract of the table. 
This, the squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a 
pheasant pie, though a peacock pie was certainly the most 
authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the 
peacocks this season, that he could not prevail upon himself 
to have one killed.* 

It would, be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, who may 
not have that foolish fondness for odd and obsolete things to 
which I am a little given, were I to mention the other make- 
shifts of this worthy old humorist, by which he was endeavor- 
ing to follow up, though at humble distance, the quaint 
customs of antiquity. I was pleased, however, to see the 
respect shown to his whims by his children and relatives; who 
indeed, f^ntered readily into the full spirit of them, and 
seemed all well versed in their parts; having doubtless been 
present at many a rehearsal. I was amused, too, at the air of 
profound gravity with which the butler and other servants 
executed the duties assigned them, however eccentric. They 
had an old-fashioned look; having, for the most part, been 
brought up in the household, and grown into keeping with 
the antiquated mansion, and the humors of its lord; and most 
probably looked upon all his whimsical regulations as the 
established laws of honorable housekeeping. 

When the cloth was removed, the butler brought in a huge 
silver vessel, of rare and curious workmanship, which he 

* The peacock was anciently in great demand for stately entertain- 
ments. Sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of which the head 
appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with the beak richly gilt ; 
at the other end the tail was displayed. Such pies were served up at 
the solemn banquets of chivalry, when knights-errant pledged them- 
selves to undertake any perilous enterprise, whence came the ancient 
oath, used by Justice Shallow, " by cock and pie." 

The peacock was also an important dish for the Christmas feast, and 
Massinger, in his " City Madam," gives some idea of the extravagance 
with which this, as well as other dishes, was prepared for the gorgeous 
revels of the olden times : 

" Men may talk of Country Christmasses. 

" Their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues : 

' ' Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris ; tlie carcases of three fat 
withers bruised for gravy to make sauce for a single peacock / " 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNEB. 185 

placed before the sqiiire. Its appearance was hailed with 
acclamation; being the Wassail Bowl, so renowned in Christ- 
mas festivity. The contents had been prepared by the squire 
himself; for it was a beverage, in the skillful mixture of 
which he particularly prided himself: alleging that it was too 
abstruse and complex for the comprehension of an ordinary 
servant. It was a potation, indeed, that might well make the 
heart of a toper leap within him; being composed of the 
richest and raciest wines, highly spiced and sweetened, with 
roasted apples bobbing about the surface.* 

The old gentleman's whole countenance beamed with a 
serene look of indwelling delight, as he stirred this mighty 
bowl. Having raised it to his lips, with a hearty wish of a 
merry Christmas to all present, he sent it brimming round the 
board, for everyone to follow his example according to the 
primitive style; pronouncing it "the ancient fountain of 
good feeling, where all hearts met together." f 

There was much laughing and rallying, as the honest 
emblem of Christmas Joviality circulated, and was kissed 
rather coyly by the ladies. But when it reached Master 
Simon, he raised it in both hands, and with the air of a boon 
companion, struck up an old Wassail Chanson: 

" The brown bowle, 
The merry brown bowle, 
As it goes round about-a, 

Fill 

Still, 
Let the world say what it will, 
And drink your fill all out-a. 

* The Wassail Bowl was sometimes composed of ale instead of wine ; 
with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs ; in this way the 
nut-brown beverage is still prepared in some old families, and round the 
hearth of substantial farmers at Christmas. It is also called Lamb's 
Wool, and it is celebrated by Herrick in his "Twelfth Night " : 

" Next crowne the bowle full 

With gentle Lamb's Wool, 
Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger, 

With store of ale too ; 

And thus ye must doe 
To make the Wassaile a swinger." 

f " The custom of drinking out of the same cup gave place to each 
having his cup. When the steward came to the doore with the Wassel, 
he was to cry three times, Wassel, Wassel, Wassel, and then the chappeli 
(chaplain) was to answer with a song." — Archceologia. 



186 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

" The deep canne, 
The merry deep canne, 
As thou dost freely quaff -a, 

Sing 

Fling, 
Be as merry as a king. 
And sound a lusty laugh-a." * 

Much of the conversation during dinner turned upon 
family topics, to which I was a stranger. There was, how- 
ever, a great deal of rallying of Master Simon about some gay 
widow, with whom he was accused of having a flirtation. 
This attack was commenced by the ladies; but it was con- 
tinued throughout the dinner by the fat-headed old gentle- 
man next the parson, with the persevering assiduity of a slow 
hound; being one of those long-winded jokers, who, though 
rather dull at starting game, are unrivaled for their talents 
in hunting it down. At every pause in the general conversa- 
tion, he renewed his bantering in pretty much the same terms; 
winking hard at me with both eyes, whenever he gave Master 
Simon what he considered a home thrust. The latter, in- 
deed, seemed fond of being teased on the subject, as old 
bachelors are apt to be; and he took occasion to inform me, 
in an undertone, that the lady in question was a prodigiously 
fine woman and drove her own curricle. 

The dinner-time passed away in this flow of innocent 
hilarity, and though the old hall may have resounded in its 
time with many a scene of broader rout and revel, yet I doubt 
whether it ever witnessed more honest and genuine enjoy- 
ment. How easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse 
pleasure around him; and how truly is a kind heart a fountain 
of gladness, making everything in its vicinity to freshen into 
smiles! The joyous disposition of the worthy squire was per- 
fectly contagious; he was happy himself, and disposed to 
make all the world happy; and the little eccentricities of his 
humor did but season, in a manner, the sweetness of his 
philanthropy. 

When the ladies had retired, the conversation, as usual, be- 
came still more animated: many good things were broached 
which had been thought of during dinner, but which would 
not exactly do for a lady's ear; and though I cannot positively 
afi&rm that there was much wit uttered, yet I have certainly 
heard many contests of rare wit produce much less laughter, 

* From •' Poor Robin's Almanack." 



TEE CHRISTMAS DINNEB. 187 

"Wit, after all, is a mighty tart, pungent ingredient, and mnch. 
too acid for some stomachs; but honest good-humor is the 
oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial com- 
panionship equal to that, where the jokes are rather small 
and the laughter abundant. 

The squire told several long stories of early college pranks 
and adventures, in some of which the parson had been a 
sharer; though in looking at the latter, it required some effort 
of imagination to figure such a little dark anatomy of a man, 
into the perpetrator of a madcap gambol. Indeed, the two 
college chums presented pictures of what men may be made 
by their different lots in life: the squire had left the univer- 
sity to live lustily on his paternal, domain, in the vigorous 
enjojrment of prosperity and sunshine, and had flourished on 
to a hearty and florid old age; whilst the poor parson, on the 
contrary, had dried and withered away, among dusty tomes, 
in the silence and shadows of his study. Still there seemed 
to be a spark of almost extinguished fire, feebly glimmering 
in the bottom of his soul; and, as the squire hinted at a sly 
story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid whom they once 
met on the banks of the Isis, the old gentleman made an 
'^ alphabet of faces," which, as far as I could decipher his 
physiognomy, I verily believe was indicative of laughter; — ■ 
indeed, I have rarely met with an old gentleman that took 
absolute offense at the imputed gallantries of his youth. 

I found the tide of wine and wassail fast gaining on the dry 
land of sol3er judgment. The company grew merrier and 
louder, as their jokes grew duller. Master Simon was in as 
chirping a humor as a grasshopper filled with dew; his old 
songs grew of a warmer complexion, and he begant to talk 
maudlin about the widow. He even gave a long song about 
the wooing of a widow, which he informed me he had gath- 
ered from an excellent black-letter work entitled " Cupid's 
Solicitor for Love "; containing store of good advice for 
bachelors, and which he promised to lend me; the first verse 
was to this effect: 

'* He that would woo a widow must not dally, 
He must make hay while the sun doth shine ; 
He must not stand with her, shall I, shall I, 
But boldly say, Widow, thou must be mine." 

This song inspired the fat-headed old gentleman, who made 
several attempts to tell a rather broad story of Joe Miller, 
that was pat to the purpose; but he always stuck in the 



188 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

middle, everybody recollecting the latter part excepting him- 
self. The parson, too, began to show the effects of good 
cheer, having gradually settled down into a doze, and his 
wig sitting most suspiciously on one side. Just at this 
juncture we were summoned to the drawing room, and I 
suspect, at the private instigation of mine host, whose jovi- 
ahty seemed always tempered with a proper love of decorum. 

After the dinner-table was removed the hall was given up 
to the younger members of the family, who, prompted to all 
kind of noisy mirth by the Oxonian and Master Simon, made 
its old walls ring with their merriment, as they played at 
romping games, I delight in witnessing the gambols of chil- 
dren, and particularly at this happy holiday season, and could 
not help stealing out of the drawing room on hearing one 
of their peals of laughter. I found them at the game of 
blind-man's buff. Master Simon, who was the leader of their 
revels, and seemed on all occasions to fulfill the office of that 
ancient potentate, the Lord of Misrule,* was blinded in the 
midst of the hall. The little beings were as busy about him 
as the mock fairies about Falstaff; pinching him, plucking 
at the skirts of his coat, and tickling him with straws. One 
fine blue-eyed girl of about thirteen, with her flaxen hair all 
in beautiful confusion, her frolic face in a glow, her frock 
half torn off her shoulders, a complete picture of a romp, 
was the chief tormentor; and from the slyness with which 
Master Simon avoided the smaller game, and hemmed this 
wild little nymph in corners, and obliged her to jump shriek- 
ing over chairs, I suspected the rogue of being not ai whit 
more blinded than was convenient. 

When I returned to the drawing room, I found the com- 
pany seated round the fire listening to the parson, who was 
deeply ensconced in a high-backed oaken chair, the work 
of some cunning artificer of yore, which had been brought 
from the library for his particular accommodation. From 
this venerable piece of furniture, with which his shadowy 
figure and dark weazen face so admirably accorded, he was 
dealing forth strange accounts of the popular superstitions 
and legends of the surrounding country, with which he had 
become acquainted in the course of his antiquarian re- 

* *• At Christmasse there was in the Kinges house, wheresoever hee was 
lodged, a lorde of misrule, or mayster of merie disportes, and the like 
had ye in the house of every nobleman of honor ; or good worshippe 
were he spirituall or temporall." — Stow. 



THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 189 

searches. I am half inclined to think that the old gentle- 
man was himself somewhat tinctured with superstition, as 
men are very apt to be who live a recluse and studious life 
in a sequestered part of the country, and pore over black- 
letter tracts, so often filled with the marvelous and super- 
natural. He gave us several anecdotes of the fancies of the 
neighboring peasantry, concerning the efiigy of the Crusader, 
which lay on the tomb by the church altar. As it was the 
only monument of the kind in that part of the country, it 
had always been regarded with feelings of superstition by 
the good wives of the village. It was said to get up from 
the tomb and walk the rounds of the churchyard in stormy 
nights, particularly when it thundered; and one old woman, 
whose cottage bordered on the churchyard, had seen it 
through the windows of the church, when the moon shone, 
slowly pacing up and down the aisles. It was the belief that 
some wrong had been left unredressed by the deceased, or 
some treasure hidden, which kept the spirit in a stata of 
trouble and restlessness. Some talked of gold and jewels 
buried in the tomb, over which the specter kept watch; and 
there was a story current of a sexton, in old times, who en- 
deavored to break his way to the coffin at night; but just 
as he reached it, received a violent blow from the marble 
hand of the effigy, which stretched him senseless on the pave- 
ment. These tales were often laughed at by some of the 
sturdier among the rustics; yet when night came on, there 
were many of the stoutest unbelievers that were shy of ven- 
turing alone in the footpath that led across the churchyard. 

From these and other anecdotes that followed, the Crusader 
appeared to be the favorite hero of ghost stories throughout 
the vicinity. His picture, which hung up in the hall, was 
thought by the servants to have something supernatural about 
it: for they remarked that, in whatever part of the hall you 
went, the eyes of the warrior were still fixed on you. The 
old porter's wife, too, at the lodge, who had been bom and 
brought up in the family, and was a great gossip among the 
maidservants, affirmed, that in her young days she had often 
heard say that on Midsummer's eve, when it was well known 
all kinds of ghosts, goblins, and fairies become visible and 
walk abroad, the Crusader used to mount his horse, come 
down from his picture, ride about the house, down the 
avenue, and so to the church to visit the tomb; on which 
occasion the church door most civilly swung open of itself; 



190 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

not that he needed it — for he rode through closed gates and 
even stone walls, and had been seen by one of the dairymaids 
to pass between two bars of the great park gate, making him- 
self as thin as a sheet of paper. 

All these superstitions I found had been very much coun- 
tenanced by the squire, who, though not superstitious him- 
self, was very fond of seeing others so. He listened to every 
goblin tale of the neighboring gossips with infinite gravity, 
and held the porter's wife in high favor on account of her 
talent for the marvelous. He was himself a great reader of 
old legends and romances, and often lamented that he could 
not believe in them; for a superstitious person, he thought, 
must live in a kind of fairy land. 

Whilst we were all attention to the parson's stories, our 
ears were suddenly assailed by a burst of heterogeneous 
sounds from the hall, in which were mingled something like 
the clang of rude minstrelsy, with the uproar of many small 
voices and girlish laughter. The door suddenly flew open, 
and a train came trooping into the room that might almost 
have been mistaken for the breaking up of the court of Fairy. 
That indefatigable spirit. Master Simon, in the faithful dis- 
charge of his duties as Lord of Misrule, had conceived the 
idea of a Christmas mummery, or masquing, and having 
called in to his assistance the Oxonian and the young ofB.cer, 
who were equally ripe for anything that should occasion 
romping and merriment, they had carried it into instant 
effect. The old housekeeper had been consulted; the antique 
clothes presses and wardrobes rummaged, and made to yield 
up the relics of finery that had not seen the light for several 
generations; the younger part of the company had been pri- 
vately convened from parlor and hall, and the whole had been 
bedizened out into a burlesque imitation of an antique 
masque.* 

Master Simon led the van as " Ancient Christmas," 
quaintly appareled in a ruff, a short cloak, which had very 
much the aspect of one of the old housekeeper's petticoats, 
and a hat that might have served for a village steeple, and 
must indubitably have figured in the days of the Covenanters. 

* Masquings, or mummeries, were favorite sports at Christmas, in 
old times ; and the wardrobes at halls and manor-houses were often laid 
under contribution to furnish dresses and fantastic disguisings. I 
strongly suspect Master Simon to have takea the idea of his from Ben 
^onson'a " Masque of Christmas," 



THE CHRI8TMAS BINNEB. 191 

From Tinder this, his nose curved boldly forth, flushed with 
a frost-bitten bloom that seemed the very trophy of a Decem- 
ber blast. He was accompanied by the blue-eyed romp, 
dished up as " Dame Mince Pie/' in the venerable magnifi- 
cence of faded brocade, long stomacher, peaked hat, and high- 
heeled shoes. 

The young officer appeared as Eobin Hood, in a sporting 
dress of Kendal green and a foraging cap with a gold tassel. 

The costume, to be sure, did not bear testimony to deep 
research, and there was an evident eye to the picturesque, 
natural to a young gallant in presence of his mistress. The 
fair Julia hung on his arm in a pretty rustic dress, as " Maid 
Marian." The rest of the train had been metamorphosed in 
various ways; the girls trussed up in the finery of the ancient 
belles of the Bracebridge line, and the striplings bewhiskered 
with burnt cork, and gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging 
sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the characters 
of Eoast Beef, Plum Pudding, and other worthies celebrated 
in ancient masquings. The whole was under the control of 
the Oxonian, in the appropriate character of Misrule; and 
I observed that he exercised rather a mischievous sway with 
his wand over the smaller personages of the pageant. 

The irruption of this motley crew, with beat of drum, 
according to ancient custom, was the consummation of up- 
roar and merriment. Master Simon covered himself with 
glory by the stateliness with which, as Ancient Christmas, he 
walked a minuet with the peerless, though giggling. Dame 
Mince Pie. It was followed by a dance of all the characters, 
which, from its medley of costumes, seemed as though the 
old family portraits had skipped down from their frames to 
join in the sport. Different centuries were figuring at cross- 
hands and right and left; the dark ages were cutting pirou- 
ettes and rigadoons; and the days of Queen Bess, jigging 
merrily down the middle, through a line of succeeding 
generations. 

The worthy squire contemplated these fantastic sports, and 
this resurrection of his old wardrobe, with the simple relish 
of childish delight. He stood chuckling and rubbing his 
hands, and scarcely hearing a word the parson said, notwith- 
standing that the latter was discoursing most authentically 
on the ancient and stately dance of the Pavon, or peacock, 
from which he conceived the minuet to be derived.* For my 

* Sir John Hawkins, speaking of the dance called the ** Pavon," from 



192 THE SKETCH-BOOK, 

part, I was in a contiimal excitement from the varied scenes 
of whim and innocent gayety passing before me. It was in- 
spiring to see wild-eyed frolic and warm-hearted hospitality 
breaking ont from among the chills and glooms of winter, 
and old age throwing off his apathy and catching once more 
the freshness of youthful enjoyment. I felt also an interest 
in the scene, from the consideration that these fleeting cus- 
toms were posting fast into oblivion, and that this was, per- 
haps, the only family in England in which the whole of 
them were still punctiliously observed. There was a quaint- 
ness, too, mingled with all this revelry, that gave it a pecu- 
liar zest: it was suited to the time and place; and as the old 
manor-house almost reeled with mirth and wassail, it seemed 
echoing back the joviality of long-departed years. 

But enough of Christmas and its gambols; it is time for me 
to pause in this garrulity. Methinks I hear the question 
asked by my graver readers, " To what purpose is all this — 
how is the world to be made wiser by this talk? " Alas! is 
there not wisdom enough extant for the instruction of the 
world? And if not, are there not thousands of abler pens 
laboring for its improvement? It is so much pleasanter to 
please than to instruct — to play the companion rather than 
the preceptor. 

What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I could throw 
into the mass of knowledge; or how a.m I sure that my sagest 
deductions may be safe guides for the opinions of others? 
But in writing to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is my own 
disappointment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in 
these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, 
or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow — if I 
can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of 
misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, 
and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow- 
beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then have 
written entirely in vain. 

pavo, a peacock, says, " It is a grave and majestic dance ; the method of 
dancing it anciently was by gentlemen dressed with caps and swords, by 
those of the long robe in their gowns, by the peers in their mantles, and 
by the ladies in gowns with long trains, the motion whereof, in dancing, 
resembled that of a peacock." — ''History of Music" 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 193 

[The following modicum of local history was lately put 
into my hands by an odd-looking old gentleman in a small 
brown wig and snuif-colored coat^ with whom I became ac- 
quainted in the course of one of my tours of observation 
through the center of that great wilderness, the City. I con- 
fess that I was a little dubious at first, whether it was not 
one of those apocryphal tales often passed off upon inquiring 
travelers like myself; and which have brought our general 
character for veracity into such unmerited reproach. On 
making proper inquiries, however, I have received the most 
satisfactory assurances of the author's probity; and, indeed, 
have been told that he is actually engaged in a full and par- 
ticular account of the very interesting region in which he 
resides, of which the following may be considered merely a 
foretaste.] 



LITTLE BEITAIN^. 

What I write is most true .... I have a whole booke of cases lying 
by me, which if I should sette foorth, some grave auntients (within the 
hearing of Bow bell) would be out of charity with me. — Nashe. 

IiT the center of the great city of London lies a small 
neighborhood, consisting of a cluster of narrow streets and 
courts of very venerable and debilitated houses, which goes 
by the name of Little Beitain. Christ Church School and 
St. Bartholomew's Hospital bound it on the west; Smithfield 
and Long Lane on the north; Aldersgate Street, like an arm of 
the sea, divides it from the eastern part of the city; whilst 
the yawning gulf of Bull-and-Mouth Street separates it from 
Butcher Lane and the regions of Newgate. Over this little 
territory, thus bounded and designated, the great dome of 
St. Paul's, swelling above the intervening houses of Pater- 
noster Eow, Amen Comer, and Ave Maria Lane looks down 
with an air of motherly protection. 

This quarter derives its appellation from having been, in 
ancient times, the residence of the dukes of Brittany. As 
London increased, however, rank and fashion rolled off to 
the west, and trade creeping on at their heels, took possession 
of their deserted abodes. For some time. Little Britain be- 
came the great mart of learning, and was peopled by the busy 
and prolific race of booksellers: these also gradually deserted 
it; and, emigrating beyond the great strait of JSTewgate 



194 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

Street^ settled down in Paternoster Eow and St. PauPs 
Churchyard; where they continue to increase and multiply, 
even at the present day. 

But though thus fallen into decline. Little Britain still 
bears traces of its former splendor. There are several houses, 
ready to tumble down, the fronts of which are magnificently 
enriched with old oaken carvings of hideous faces, unknown 
birds, beasts, and fishes; and fruits and flowers, which it would 
perplex a naturalist to classify. There are also, in Alders- 
gate Street, certain remains of what were once spacious and 
lordly family mansions, but which have in latter days been 
subdivided into several tenements. Here may often be found 
the family of a petty tradesman, with its trumpery furniture, 
burrowing among the relics of antiquated finery, in great 
rambling time-stained apartments, with fretted ceilings, 
gilded cornices, and enormous marble fireplaces. The lanes 
and courts also contain many smaller houses, not on so grand 
a scale; but like your small ancient gentry, steadily main- 
taining their claims to equal antiquity. These have their 
gable ends to the street; great bow windows, with dia- 
mond panes set in lead; grotesque carvings; and low-arched 
doorways.* 

In this most venerable and sheltered little nest have I 
passed several quiet years of existence, comfortably lodged 
in the second floor of one of the smallest, but oldest edifices. 
My sitting room is an old wainscoted chamber, with small 
panels, and set off with a miscellaneous array of furniture. 
I have a particular respect for three or four high-backed, 
claw-footed chairs, covered with tarnished brocade, which 
bear the marks of having seen better days, and have doubtless 
figured in some of the old palaces of Little Britain. They 
seem to me to keep together, and to look down with sovereign 
contempt upon their leathern-bottomed neighbors; as I have 
seen decayed gentry carry a high head among the plebian 
society with which they were reduced to associate. The 
whole front of my sitting room is taken up with a bow 
window; on the panes of which are recorded the names of 
previous occupants for many generations; mingled with 
scraps of very indifferent gentleman-like poetry, written in 
characters which I can scarcely decipher; and which extol 

* It is evident that the author of this interesting communication has 
included in his general title of "Little Britain," many of those little 
lanes and courts that belong immediately to Cloth Fair. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 195 

the charms of many a beauty of Little Britain, who has long, 
long since bloomed, faded, and passed away. As I am an 
idle personage, with no apparent occupation, and pay my 
bill regularly every week, I am looked upon as the only inde- 
pendent gentleman of the neighborhood; and being curious 
to learn the internal state of a community so apparently shut 
up within itself, I have managed to work my way into all 
the concerns and secrets of the place. 

Little Britain may truly be called the heart's-core of the 
City; the stronghold of true John BuUism. It is a fragment 
of London as it was in its better days, with its antiquated 
folks and fashions. Here flourish in great preservation many 
of the holiday games and customs of yore. The inhabitants 
most religiously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday; hot cross 
buns on Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they 
send love letters on Valentine's Day; burn the Pope on the 
6th of November, and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe 
at Christmas. Eoast beef and plum-pudding are also held in 
superstitious veneration, and port and sherry maintain their 
grounds as the only true English wines — all others being con- 
sidered vile outlandish beverages. 

Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which 
its inhabitants consider the wonders of the world: such as 
the great bell of St. PauFs, which sours all the beer when it 
tolls; the figures that strike the hours at St. Dunstan's clock; 
the Monument; the lions in the Tower; and the wooden 
giants in Guildhall. They still believe in dreams and 
fortune-telling; and an old woman that lives in BuU-and- 
Mouth Street makes a tolerable subsistence by detecting 
stolen goods and promising the girls good husbands. They 
are apt to be rendered uncomfortable by comets and eclipses; 
and if a dog howls dolefully at night, it is looked upon as 
a sure sign of a death in the place. There are even many 
ghost stories current, particularly concerning the old man- 
sion houses; in several of which it is said strange sights are 
sometimes seen. Lords and ladies, the former in full- 
bottomed wigs, hanging sleeves, and swords, the latter in 
lappets, stays, hoops, and brocade, have been seen walking 
up and down the great waste chambers on moonhght nights, 
and are supposed to be the shades of the ancient proprietors 
in their court dresses. 

Little Britain has likewise its sages and great men. One 
of the most important of the former is a tall, dry old gentle- 



196 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

man, of the name of Skryme, who keeps a small apothecary's 
shop. He has a cadaverous countenance, full of cavities and 
projections; with a brown circle round each eye, like a pair 
of horn spectacles. He is much thought of by the old 
women, who consider him as a kind of conjuror, because he 
has two or three stuffed alligators hanging up in his shop 
and several snakes in bottles. He is a great reader of 
almanacs and newspapers, and is much given to pore over 
alarming accounts of plots, conspiracies, fires, earthquakes, 
and volcanic eruptions; which last phenomena he considers 
as signs of the times. He has always some dismal tale of the 
kind to deal out to his customers, with their doses, and thus 
at the same time puts both soul and body into an uproar. He 
is a great believer in omens and predictions, and has the 
prophecies of Robert Mxon and Mother Shipton by heart. 
1^0 man. can make so much out of an ecUpse, or even an 
unusually dark day; and he shook the tail of the last comet 
over the heads of his customers and disciples until they were 
nearly frightened out of their wits. He has lately got hold 
of a popular legend or prophecy, on which he has been un- 
usually eloquent. There has been a saying current among 
the ancient Sybils, who treasure up these things, that when 
the grasshopper on the top of the Exchange shook hands 
with the dragon on the top of Bow Church steeple fearful 
events would take place. This strange conjunction, it seems, 
has as strangely come to pass. The same architect has been 
engaged lately on the repairs of the cupola of the Exchange 
and the steeple of Bow Church; and, fearful to relate, the 
dragon and the grasshopper actually lie, cheek by jowl, in the 
yard of his workshop. 

" Others," as Mr. Skryme is accustomed to say, " may go 
stargazing and look for conjunctions in the heavens, but 
here is a conjunction on the earth, near at home, and under 
our own eyes, which surpasses all the signs and calculations 
of astrologers." Since these portentous weathercocks have 
thus laid their heads together, wonderful events had already 
occurred. The good old king, notwithstanding that he had 
lived eighty- two years, had all at once given up the ghost; 
another king had mounted the throne; a royal duke had died 
suddenly — another, in France, had been murdered; there had 
been radical meetings in all parts of the kingdom; the bloody 
scenes at Manchester — the great plot in Cato Street; — and 
above all, the queen had returned to England! All these 



LITTLE BEITAIN. 197 

sinister events are recounted by Mr. Skryme with a mysteri- 
ous look and a dismal shake of the head; and being) taken 
with his drugs, and associated in the minds of his auditors 
with stuffed sea monsters, bottled serpents, and his own 
visage, which is a title-page of tribulation, they have spread 
great gloom through the minds of the people of Little 
Britain. They shake their heads whenever they go by Bow 
Church, and observe, that they never expected any good to 
come of taking down that steeple, which, in old times, told 
nothing but glad tidings, as the history of Whittington and 
his cat bears witness. 

The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial cheese- 
monger, who lives in a fragment of one of the old family 
mansions, and is as magnificently lodged as a round-bellied 
mite in the midst of one of his own Cheshires. Indeed, he 
is a man of no little standing and importance; and his re- 
nown extends through Huggin Lane, and Lad Lane, and even 
unto Aldermanbury. His opinion is very much taken in 
affairs of state, having read the Sunday papers for the last 
half century, together with the " Gentleman's Magazine," 
Eapin's ^' History of England," and the " Naval Chronicle." 
His head is stored with invaluable maxims, which have borne 
the test of time and use for centuries. It is his firm opinion 
that " it is a moral impossible," so long as England is true to 
herself, that anything can shake her: and he has much to 
say on the subject of the national debt; which, somehow or 
other, he proves to be a great national bulwark and blessing. 
He passed the greater part of his life in the purlieus of Little 
Britain, until of late years, when, having become rich and 
grown into the dignity of a Sunday cane, he begins to take 
his pleasure and see the world. He has therefore made 
several excursions to Hampstead, Highgate, and other 
neighboring towns, where he has passed whole afternoons 
in looking back upon the metropolis through a telescope', and 
endeavoring to descry the steeple of St. Bartholomew's. Not 
a stagecoachman of Bull-and-Mouth Street but touches his 
hat as he passes; and he is considered quite a patron at the 
coach office of the Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul's Church- 
yard. His family have been very urgent for him to make 
an expedition to Margate, but he has great doubts of these 
new gimcracks, the steamboats, and, indeed, thinks himself 
too advanced in life to undertake sea voyages. 

Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divisions, 



108 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

and party spirit ran very high at one time, in consequence of 
two rival " Burial Societies " being set up in the place. One 
held its meeting at the Swan and Horseshoe, and was patron- 
ized by the cheesemonger; the other at the Cock and Crown, 
under the auspices of the apothecary. It is needless to say 
that the latter was the most flourishing. I have passed an 
evening or two at each, and have acquired much valuable 
information as to the best mode of being buried; the com- 
parative merits of churchyards, together with divers hints 
on the subject of patent iron coffins. I have heard the ques- 
tion discussed in all its bearings, as to the legality of pro- 
hibiting the latter on account of their durability. The feuds 
occasioned by these societies have happily died away of late; 
but they were for a long time prevailing themes of contro- 
versy, the people of Little Britain being extremely solicitous 
of funeral honors, and of lying comfortably in their graves. 

Besides these two funeral societies, there is a third of quite 
a different cast, which tends to throw the sunshine of good- 
humor over the whole neighborhood. It meets once a week 
at a little old-fashioned house, kept by a jolly publican 
of the name of Wagstaff, and bearing for insignia a resplend- 
ent half-moon, with a most seductive bunch of grapes. The 
whole edifice is covered with inscriptions to catch the eye of 
the thirsty wayfarer; such as " Truman, Hanbury & Co's 
Entire," " Wine, Eum, and Brandy Vaults," " Old Tom, Eum, 
and Compounds," etc. This, indeed, has been a temple of 
Bacchus and Momus from time immemorial. It has always 
been in the family of the Wagstaffs, so that its history is 
tolerably preserved by the present landlord. It was much 
frequented by the gallants and cavalieros of the reign of 
Elizabeth, and was looked into now and then by the wits of 
Charles II.^s day. But what Wagstaff principally prides 
himself upon is, that Henry VIIL, in one of his nocturnal 
rambles, broke the head of one of his ancestors with his 
famous walking staff. This, however, is considered as rather 
a dubious and vainglorious boast of the landlord. 

The club which now holds its weekly sessions here, goes by 
the name of " the Eoaring Lads of Little Britain." They 
abound in all catches, glees, and choice stories, that are tradi- 
tional of the place, and not to be met with in any other part 
of the metropolis. There is a madcap undertaker, who is 
inimitable at a merry song; but the life of the club, and in- 
deed, the prime wit of Little Britain, is bully Wagstaff him- 



LITTLE BBITAm. 199 

self. His ancestors were all wags before him, and lie has in- 
herited with the inn a large stock of songs and jokes, which 
go with it from generation to generation as heirlooms. He 
is a dapper little fellow, with bandy legs and pot belly, a red 
face with a moist merry eye, and a little shock of gray hair 
behind. At the opening of every clnb night, he is called in 
to sing his " Confession of Faith," which is the famous old 
drinking troll from " Gammer Giirton's Needle." He sings 
it, to be sure, with many variations, as he received it from his 
father's lips; for it had been a standing favorite at tlie Half- 
Moon and Bunch of Grapes ever since it was written; nay, 
he affirms that his predecessors have often had the honor of 
singing it before the nobility and gentry at Christmas mum- 
meries, when Little Britain was in all its glory.* 

* As mine host of the Half -Moon's " Confession of Faith " may not be 
familiar to the majority of readers, and as it is a specimen of the cur- 
rent songs of " Little Britain," I subjoin it in its original orthography. 
I would observe, that the whole club always join in the chorus with a 
fearful thumping on the table and clattering of pewter pots. 

*' I cannot eate but lytle meate, 

My stomacke is not good. 
But sure I thinke that I can drinke 

With him that weares a hood. 
Though I go bare take ye no care, 

I nothing am a colde, 
I stuff my skyn so full within. 

Of joly good ale and olde. 

Chorus, Back and syde go bare, go bare, 
Both foot and hand go colde ; 
But belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe, 
Whether it be new or olde. 

** I have no rost, but a nut brown toste 

And a crab laid in the fyre ; 
A little breade shall do me steade, 

Much breade I not desyre. 
No frost nor snow, nor winde I trowe, 

Can hurt me if I wolde, 
I am so wrapt and throwly lapt 

Of joly good ale and olde. 

Chorus. Back and syde go bare, go bare, etc 

'* And Tyb my wife, that, as her lyfe, 
Loveth well good ale to seeke, 
Full oft drynkes she, tyll ye may see 
The teares run down her cheeke. 



200 THE 8KET0H-B00K. 

It would do one's heart good to hear on a clnb night the 
shouts of merriment, the snatches of song, and now and then 
the choral bursts of half a dozen discordant voices, which 
issue from this jovial mansion. At such times the street is 
lined with listeners, who enjoy a delight equal to that of gaz- 
ing into a confectioner's window, or snuffing up the steams 
of a cook-shop. 

There are two annual events which produce great stir and 
sensation in Little Britain; these are St. Bartholomew's Fair 
and the Lord Mayor's Day. During the time of the Fair, 
which is held in the adjoining regions of Smithfield, there 
is nothing going on but gossiping and gadding about. The 
late quiet streets of Little Britain are overrun with an irrup- 
tion of strange figures and faces; — every tavern is a scene of 
rout and revel. The fiddle and the song are heard from the 
taproom, morning, noon, and night; and at each window 
may be seen some group of boon companions, with half -shut 
eyes, hats on one side, pipe in mouth, and tankard in hand, 
fondling and prosing, and singing maudlin songs over their 
liquor. Even the sober decorum of private families, which 
1 must say is rigidly kept up at other times among my neigh- 
bors, is no proof against this Saturnalia. There is no such 
thing as keeping maidservants within doors. Their brains 
are absolutely set madding with Punch and the Puppet Show; 
the Flying Horses, Signior Polito, the Fire-Eater, the cele- 
brated Mr. Paap, and the Irish Giant. The children, too, 
lavish all their holiday money in toys and gilt gingerbread, 
and fill the house with the Lilliputian din of drums, trumpets, 
and penny whistles. 

Then doth shee trowle to me the bowle. 

Even as a maulte-worme sholde, 
And sayth, sweete harte, I tooke my parte 

Of this joly good ale and olde. 

Chorus. Back and syde go bare, go bare, etc. 

*• Now let them drynke, tyll they nod and winke, 

Even as goode fellowes sholde doe, 
They shall not mysse to have the blisse, 

Good ale doth bring men to. 
And all poor soules that have scowred bowles, 

Or have them lustily trolde, 
God save the lyves of them and their wives, 

Whether they be yonge or olde. 

Chorus. Back and syde go bare, go bare," etc. 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 201 

But the Lord Mayor's day is the great anniversary. The 
Lord Mayor is looked up to by the inhabitants of Little Britain 
as the greatest potentate upon earth; his gilt coach with six 
horses, as the summit of human splendor; and his procession, 
with all the sheriffs and aldermen in his train, as the grand- 
est of earthly pageants. How they exult in the idea that 
the king himself dare not enter the city without first knock- 
ing at the gate of Temple Bar and asking permission of the 
Lord Mayor; for if he did, heaven and earth! there is no 
knowing what might be the consequence. The man in 
armor who rides before the Lord Mayor, and is the city cham- 
pion, has orders to cut down everybody that offends against 
the dignity of the city; and then there is the little man with a 
velvet porringer on his head, who' sits at the window of the 
state coach and holds the city sword, as long as a pike-staff — 
Od's blood! if he once draws that sword, majesty itself is not 
safe! 

Under the protection of this mighty potentate, therefore, 
the good people of Little Britain sleep in peace. Temple Bar 
is an effectual barrier against all internal foes; and as to 
foreign invasion, the Lord Mayor has but to throw himself 
into the Tower, call in the train bands, and put the standing 
army of Beef-eaters under arms, and he may bid defiance to 
the world! 

Thus wrapped up in its own concerns, its own habits, and 
its own opinions. Little Britain has long flourished as a sound 
heart to this great fungus metropolis. I have pleased myself 
with considering it as a chosen spot, where the principles of 
sturdy John Bullism were garnered up, like seed-corn, to 
renew the national character when it had run to waste and 
degeneracy. I have rejoiced also in the general spirit of har- 
mony that prevailed throughout it; for though there might 
now and then be a few clashes of opinion between the adhe- 
rents of the cheesemonger and the apothecary, and an occa- 
sional feud between the burial societies, yet these were but 
transient clouds, and soon passed away. The neighbors met 
with good will, parted with a shake of the hand, and never 
abused each other except behind their backs. 

I could give rare descriptions of snug junketing parties at 
which I have been present; where we played at All Fours, 
Pope Joan, Tom-come-tickle-me, and other choice old games: 
and where we sometimes had a good old English country 
dance, to the tune of Sir Eoger de Coverly. Once a year 



202 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

also the neighbors would gather together, and go on a gypsy 
party to Epping Forest. It would have done any man's heart 
good to see the merriment that took place here, as we ban- 
queted on the grass under the trees. How we made the woods 
ring with bursts of laughter at the songs of little Wagstaff 
and the merry undertaker! After dinner, too, the young 
folks would play at blind-man's buff and hide-and-seek; and it 
was amusing to see them tangled among the briers, and to 
hear a fine romping girl now and then squeak from among 
the bushes. The elder folks would gather round the cheese- 
monger and the apothecary to hear them talk politics; for 
they generally brought out a newspaper in their pockets to 
pass away time in the country. They would now and then, 
to be sure, get a little warm in argument; but their disputes 
were always adjusted by a reference to a worthy old umbrella- 
maker in a double chin, who, never exactly comprehending 
the subject, managed, somehow or other, to decide in favor 
of both parties. 

All empires, however, says some philosopher or historian, 
are doomed to changes and revolutions. Luxury and innova- 
tion creep in; factions arise; and families now and then 
spring up whose ambition and intrigues throw the whole 
system into confusion. Thus, in latter days has the tran- 
quillity of Little Britain been grievously disturbed, and its 
golden simplicity of manners threatened with total subver- 
sion by the aspiring family of a retired butcher. 

The family of the Lambs had long been among the most 
thriving and popular in the neighborhood: the Miss Lambs 
were the belles of Little Britain, and everybody was pleased 
when old Lamb had made money enough to shut up shop, 
and put his name on a brass plate on his door. In an evil 
hour, however, one of the Miss Lambs had the honor of being 
a lady in attendance on the Lady Mayoress, at her grand 
annual ball, on which occasion she wore three towering 
ostrich feathers on her head. The family never got over it; 
they were immediately smitten with a passion for high life; 
set up a one-horse carriage, put a bit of gold lace round the 
errand boy's hat, and have been the talk and detestation of 
the whole neighborhood ever since. They could no longer 
be induced to play at Pope Joan or blind-man's buff; they 
could endure no dances but quadrilles, which nobody had ever 
heard of in Little Britain; and they took to^ reading novels, 
ta-lking bad French, and playing upon the piano. Their 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 203 

brotker, too, who had heen articled to an attorney, set np 
for a dandy and a critic, characters hitherto unknown in these 
parts; and he confounded the worthy folks exceedingly by 
talking about Kean, the opera, and the Edinburgh Review. 

What was still worse, the Lambs gave a grand ball, to which 
they neglected to invite any of their old neighbors; but they 
had a great deal of genteel company from Theobald's Eoad, 
Eed Lion Square, and other parts toward the west. There 
were several beaux of their brother's acquaintance from 
Gray's Inn Lane and Tatton Garden; and not less than three 
aldermen's ladies with their daughters. This was not to be 
forgotten or forgiven. All Little Britain was in an uproar 
with the smacking of whips, the lashing of miserable horses, 
and the rattling and jingling of hackney coaches. The gos- 
sips of the neighborhood might be seen popping their night- 
caps out at every window, watching the crazy vehicles rumble 
by; and there was a knot of virulent old cronies that kept 
a lookout from a house just opposite the retired butcher's 
and scanned and criticised everyone that knocked at the 
door. 

This dance was a cause of almost open war, and the whole 
neighborhood declared they would have nothing more to say 
to the Lambs. It is true that Mrs. Lamb, when she had no 
engagements with her quality acquaintance, would give little 
humdrum tea junketings to some of her old cronies, " quite," 
as she would say, " in a friendly way! " and it is equally true 
that her invitations were always accepted, in spite of all pre- 
vious vows to the contrary. Nay, the good ladies would sit 
and be delighted with the music of the Miss Lambs, who 
would condescend to thrum an Irish melody for them on the 
piano; and they would listen with wonderful interest to Mrs. 
Lamb's anecdotes of Alderman Plunket's family of Port- 
sokenward, and the Miss Timberlakes, the rich heiresses of 
Crutched Friars; but then they relieved their consciences, 
and averted the reproaches of their confederates, by canvass- 
ing at the next gossiping convocation everything that had 
passed, and pulling the Lambs and their rout all to pieces. 

The only one of the family that could not be made fashion- 
able was the retired butcher himself. Honest Lamb, in spite 
of the meekness of his name, was a rough, hearty old fellow, 
with the voice of a lion, a head of black hair like a shoe- 
brush, and a broad face mottled like his own beef. It was 
in vain that the daughters always spoke of him as the " old. 



204 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

gentleman/^ addressed him as "papa^' in tones of infinite 
softness, and endeaTored to coax him into a dressing gown 
and slippers, and other gentlemanly habits. Do what they 
might, there was no keeping down the butcher. His sturdy 
nature would break through all their glozings. He had a 
hearty, vulgar good-humor that was irrepressible. His very 
jokes made his sensitive daughters shudder; and he persisted 
in wearing his blue cotton coat of a morning, dining at two 
o^clock, and having a " bit of sausage with his tea.^' 

He was doomed, however, to share the unpopularity of his 
family. He found his old comrades gradually growing cold 
and civil to him; no longer laughing at his jokes; and now 
and then throwing out a fling at " some people," and a hint 
about " quality binding." TMs both nettled and pc'rplexed 
the honest butcher; and his wife and daughters, with the 
consummate policy of the shrewder sex, taking advantage 
of the circumstances, at length prevailed upon him to give 
up his afternoon pipe and tankard at Wagstaffs; to sit after 
dinner by himself, and take his pint of port — a liquor he 
detested — and to nod in his chair, in solitary and dismal 
gentility. 

The Miss Lambs might now be seen flaunting along the 
streets in French bonnets, with unknown beaux; and talking 
and laughing so loud that it distressed the nerves of every 
good lady within hearing. They even went so far as to at- 
tempt patronage, and actually induced a French dancing 
master to set up in the neighborhood; but the worthy folks 
of Little Britain took fire at it, and did so persecute the poor 
Gaul, that he was fain to pack up fiddle and dancing pumps, 
and decamp with such precipitation that he absolutely forgot 
to pay for his lodgings. 

I had fiattered myself, at first, with the idea that all this 
fiery indignation on the part of the community was merely 
the overflowing of their zeal for good old English manners, 
and their horror of innovation; and I applauded the silent 
contempt they were so vociferous in expressing for upstart 
pride, French fashions, and the Miss Lambs. But I grieve 
to say that I soon perceived the infection had taken hold; 
and that my neighbors, after condemning, were beginning to 
follow their example. I overheard my landlady importuning 
her husband to let their daughters have one quarter at French 
and music, and that they might take a few lessons in quad- 
rille; I even saw, in the course of a few Sundays, no less than 



LITTLE BRITAIN. 205 

five French bonnets, precisely like those of the Miss Lambs, 
parading about Little Britain. 

I still had my hopes that all this folly would gradually die 
away; that the Lambs might move out of the neighborhood, 
might die, or might run away with attorney's apprentices, 
and that quiet and simplicity might be again restored to the 
community. But unluckily a rival power arose. An opulent 
oil-man died, and left a widow with a large jointure and a 
family of buxom daughters. The young ladies had long been 
repining in secret at the parsimony of a prudent father, which 
kept down all their elegant aspirings. Their ambition being 
now no longer restrained, broke out into a blaze, and they 
openly took the field against the family of the butcher. It 
is true that the Lambs, having had the first start, had natu- 
rally an advantage of them in the fashionable career. They 
could speak a little bad French, play the piano, dance quad- 
rilles, and had formed high acquaintances, but the Trotters 
were not to be distanced. When the Lambs appeared with 
two feathers in their hats, the Miss Trotters mounted four, 
and of twice as fine colors. If the Lambs gave a dance, the 
Trotters were sure not to be behindhand; and though they 
might not boast of as good company, yet they had double the 
number, and were twice as merry. 

The whole community has at length divided itself into 
fashionable factions, under the banners of these two families. 
The old games of Pope Joan and Tom-come-tickle-me are 
entirely discarded; there is no such thing as getting up an 
honest country-dance; and on my attempting to kiss a young 
lady under the mistletoe last Christmas, I was indignantly re- 
pulsed; the Miss Lambs having pronounced it " shocking 
vulgar." Bitter rivalry has also broken out as to the most 
fashionable part of Little Britain; the Lambs standing up for 
the dignity of Cross-Keys Square, and the Trotters for the 
vicinity of St. Bartholomew's. 

Thus is this little territory torn by factions and internal 
dissensions, ^Jike the great empire whose name it bears; and 
what will be the result would puzzle the apothecary himself, 
with all his talent at prognostics, to determine; though I 
apprehend that it will terminate in the total downfall of 
genuine John Bullism. 

The immediate effects are extremely unpleasant to me. 
Being a single man, and, as I observed before, rather an idle 
good-for-nothing personage, I have been considered the only 



206 THE SKETCHBOOK. 

gentleman by profession in the place. I stand therefore in 
high favor with both parties, and have to hear all their cabi- 
net councils and mutual backbitings. As I am too civil not 
to agree with the ladies on all occasions, I have committed 
myself most horribly with both parties, by abusing their oppo- 
nents. I might manage to reconcile this to my conscience, 
which is a truly accommodating one, but I cannot to my ap- 
prehensions — ^if the Lambs and Trotters ever come to a 
reconciliation, and compare notes, I am ruined! 

I have determined, therefore, to beat a retreat in time, and 
am actually looking out for some other nest in this great city, 
where old English manners are still kept up; where French 
is neither eaten, drank, danced, nor spoken; and where there 
are no fashionable families of retired tradesmen. This found, 
I will, like a veteran rat, hasten away before I have an old 
house about my ears — bid a long, though a sorrowful adieu 
to my present abode — and leave the rival factions of the 
Lambs and the Trotters, to divide the distracted empire of 
Little Bkitain. 



STEATFOED-ON-AVON. 

Thou soft flowing Avon, by thy silver stream 
Of things more than mortal sweet Shakspere would dream ; 
The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, 
For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. 

— GrAKKICK. 

To a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world 
which he can truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling 
of something like independence and territorial consequence, 
when, after a weary day's travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts 
his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. 
Let the world without go as it may; let kins^doms rise or fall, 
so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the 
time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The arm- 
chair is his throne, the poker his scepter, and the little parlor, 
of some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a 
morsel of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertain- 
ties of life; it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a 
cloudy day; and he who has advanced some way on the pil- 
grimage of existence, knows the importance of husbanding 
even morsels and moments of enjoyment, " Shall I not take 



STBATFORD-ON-AYON. 20t 

mine ease in mine inn? " thought I^ as I gave the fire a stir, 
lolled back in my elbow-chair, and cast a complacent look 
about the little parlor of the Eed Horse, at Stratford-on- 
Avon. 

The words of sweet Shakspere were just passing through 
my mind as the clock struck midnight from the tower of the 
church in which he lies buried. There was a gentle tap at 
the door, and a pretty chambermaid, putting in her smiling 
face, inquired, with a hesitating air, whether I had rung. I 
understood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire. My 
dream of absolute diminion was at an end; so abdicating my 
throne, like a prudent potentate, to avoid being deposed, and 
putting the Stratford Guide-Book under my arm, as a pillow 
companion, I went to bed, and dreamt all night of Shakspere, 
the Jubilee, and David Garrick. 

The next morning was one of those quickening mornings 
which we sometimes have in early spring, for it was about the 
middle of March. The chills of a long winter had suddenly 
given way; the north wind had spent its last gasp; and a mild 
air came stealing from the west, breathing the breath of life 
into nature, and wooing every bud and flower to burst forth 
into fragrance and beauty. 

I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first 
visit was to the house where Shakspere was bom, and where, 
according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft 
of wool-combing. It is a small mean-looking edifice of wood 
and plaster, a true nestling-place of genius, which seems to 
delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls of 
its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions 
in every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and condi- 
tions, from the prince to the peasant; and present a simple, 
but striking instance of the spontaneous and universal hom- 
age of mankind to the great poet of nature. 

The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in a frosty red 
face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious eye, and garnished 
with artificial locks of fiaxen hair, curling from under an ex- 
ceeding dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibit- 
ing the relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, 
abounds. There was the shattered stock of the very match- 
lock with which Shakspere shot the deer, on his poaching 
exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box; which proves that 
he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter Ealeigh; the sword also 
with which he played Hamlet; and the identical lantern witli 



208 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

which Friar Lawrence discovered Eomeo and Juliet at the 
tomb! There was an ample supply also of Shakspere's mul- 
berry tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers of 
self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross; of which 
there is enough extant to build a ship of the line. 

The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shaks- 
pere's chair. It stands in the chimney-nook of a small 
gloomy chamber, just behind what was his father's shop. 
Here he may many a time have sat when a boy, watching the 
slowly revolving spit, with all the longing of an urchin; or of 
an evening, listening to the crones and gossips of Stratford, 
dealing forth churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the 
troublesome times of England. In this chair it is the custom 
of everyone who visits the house to sit: whether this be done 
with the hope of imbibing any of the inspiration of the bard, 
I am at a loss to say; I merely mention the fact; and my 
hostess privately assured me, that, though built of solid oak, 
such was the fervent zeal of devotees, that the chair had to be 
new-bottomed at least once in three years. It is worthy of 
notice also, in the history of this extraordinary chair, that it 
partakes something of the volatile nature of the Santa Casa 
of Loretto, or the flying chair of the Arabian enchanter; for 
though sold some few years since to a northern princess, yet, 
strange to tell, it has found its way back again to the old 
chimney-corner. 

I am always of easy faith in such matters, and am very will- 
ing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant and costs noth- 
ing. I am therefore a ready believer in relics, legends, and 
local anecdotes of goblins and great men; and would advise 
all travelers who travel for their gratification to be the same. 
What is it to us whether these stories be true or false so long 
as we can persuade ourselves into the belief of them, and en- 
joy all the charm of the reality? There is nothing like reso- 
lute good-humored credulity in these matters; and on this 
occasion I went even so far as willingly to believe the claims 
of mine hostess to a lineal descent from the poet, when, un- 
luckily for my faith, she put into my hands a play of her own 
composition, which set all belief in her consanguinity at 
defiance. 

From the birthplace of Shakspere a few paces brought me 
to his grave. He lies buried in the chancel of the parish 
church, a large and venerable pile, moldering with age, but 
fichlj ornamented. It stands on the banks of the Avon^ on 



STRATFORD-ON-AVOm 209 

an embowered pointy and separated "by adjoining gardens from 
the suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and retired: 
the river runs murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and 
the elms which grow upon its banks droop their branches into 
its clear bosom. An avenue of limes, the boughs of which 
are curiously interlaced, so as to form in summer an arched 
way of foliage, leads up from the gate of the yard to the 
church porch. The graves are overgrown with grass; the 
gray tombstones, some of them nearly sunk into the earth, are 
half-covered with moss, which has likewise tinted the rev- 
erend old building. Small birds have built their nests among 
the cornices and fissures of the walls, and keep up a continual 
flutter and chirping; and rooks are sailing and cawing about 
its lofty gray spire. 

In the course of my rambles I met with the gray-headed 
sexton, and accompanied him home to get the key of the 
church. He had lived in Stratford, man and boy, for eighty 
years, and seemed still to consider himself a vigorous man, 
with the trivial exception that he had nearly lost the use of 
his legs for a few years past. His dwelling was a cottage, 
looking out upon the Avon and its bordering meadows; and 
was a picture of that neatness, order, and comfort, which per- 
vade the humblest dwellings in this country. A low white- 
washed room, with a stone floor, carefully scrubbed, served 
for parlor, kitchen, and hall. Eows of pewter and earthen 
dishes glittered along the dresser. On an old oaken table, 
well rubbed and polished, lay the family Bible and prayer 
book, and the drawer contained the family library, composed 
of about half a score of well-thumbed volumes. An ancient 
clock, that important article of cottage furniture, ticked on 
the opposite side of the room; with a bright warming-pan 
hanging on one side of it, and the old man's horn-handled 
Sunday cane on the other. The fireplace, as usual, was wide 
and deep enough to admit a gossip knot within its jambs. In 
one corner sat the old man's granddaughter sewing, a pretty 
blue-eyed girl, — and in the opposite corner was a superannu- 
ated crony, whom he addressed by the name of John Ange, 
and who, I found, had been his companion from childhood. 
They had played together in infancy; they had worked to- 
gether in manhood; they were now tottering about and gos- 
siping away the evening of life; and in a short time they will 
probably be buried together in the neighboring churchyard. 
It is not often that we see two streams of existence running 



SIO TBE SKETCH-BOOK. 

thus evenly and tranquilly side by side; it is only in such 
quiet " bosom scenes '^ of life that they are to be met with. 

I had hoped to gather some traditionary anecdotes of the 
bard from these ancient chroniclers; but they had nothing 
new to impart. The long interval, during which Shakspere's 
writings lay in comparative neglect, has spread its shadow 
over history; and it is his good or evil lot, that scarcely any- 
thing remains to his biographers but a scanty handful of 
conjectures. 

The sexton and his companion had been employed as car- 
penters, ©n the preparations for the celebrated Stratford 
jubilee, and they remembered Garrick, the prime mover of 
the fete, who superintended the arrangements, and who, ac- 
cording to the sexton, was " a short punch man, very lively 
and bustling." John Ange had assisted also in cutting down 
Shakspere's mulberry tree, of which he havl a morsel in his 
pocket for sale; no doubt a sovereign quickener of literary 
conception. 

I was grieved to hear these two worthy wights speak very 
dubiously of the eloquent dame who shows the Shakspere 
house. John Ange shook his head when I mentioned her 
valuable and inexhaustible collection of relics, particularl;^ 
her remains of the mulberry tree; and the old sexton even ex- 
pressed a doubt as to Shakspere having been born in her 
house. I soon discovered that he looked upon her mansion 
with an evil eye, as a rival to the poet's tomb; the latter hav- 
ing comparatively but few visitors. Thus it is that historians 
differ at the very outset, and mere pebbles make the stream of 
truth diverge into different channels, even at the fountain- 
head. 

We approached the church through the avenue of limes, 
and entered by a Gothic porch, highly ornamented with 
carved doors of massive oak. The interior is spacious, and 
the architecture and embellishments superior to those of most 
country churches. There are several ancient monuments of 
nobility and gentry, over some of which hang funeral 
escutcheons, and banners dropping piecemeal from the walls. 
The tomb of Shakspere is in the chancel. The place is 
solemn and sepulchral. Tall elms wave before the pointed 
windows, and the Avon, which runs at a short distance from 
the walls, keeps up a low perpetual murmur. A flat stone 
marks the spot where the bard is buried. There are four 
lines inscribed on it^ said to have been written by hini8e*lf; and 



STBATFOBD-ONAYOJSf. 211 

which have in them something extremely awful. If they are 
indeed his own, they show that solicitude about the quiet of 
the grave, which seems natural to fine sensibilities and 
thoughtful minds: 

" Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbeare 
To dig the dust inclosed here. 
Blessed be he that spares these stones 
And curst be he that moves my bones." 

Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a bust of 
Shakspere, put up shortly after his death, and considered as 
a resemblance. The aspect is pleasant and serene, with a 
finely arched forehead; and I thought I could read in it clear 
indications of that cheerful, social disposition, by which he 
was as much characterized among his contemporaries as by 
the vastness of his genius. The inscription mentions his age 
at the time of his decease — fifty- three years; an untimely 
death for the world: for what fruit might not have been ex- 
pected from the golden autumn of such a mind, sheltered as 
it was from the stormy vicissitudes of life, and flourishing in 
the sunshine of popular and royal favor! 

The inscription on the tombstone has not been without its 
effect. It has prevented the removal of his remains from the 
bosom of his native place to Westminister Abbey, which was 
at one time contemplated. A few years since also, as some 
laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth 
caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch, 
through which one might have reached into his grave. ]^o 
one, however, presumed to meddle with the remains so 
awfully guarded by a malediction, and lest any of the idle or 
the curious, or any collector of relics, should be tempted to 
commit depredations, the old sexton kept watch over the place 
for two days, until the vault was finished, and the aperture 
closed again. He told me he had made bold to look in at tlie 
hole, but could see neither coffin nor bones; nothing but dust. 
It was something, I thought, to have seen the dust of 
Shakspere. 

JSText to this grave are those of his wife, his favorite daugh- 
ter, Mrs. Hall, and others of his family. On a tomb close by, 
also, is a full-length effigy of his old friend, John Coombe, of 
usurious memory; on whom he is said to have written a ludi- 
crous epitaph. There are other monuments around, but the 
mind refuses to dwell on anything that is not connected with 



212 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

Shakspere. His idea pervades the place — the whole pile 
seems but as his mausoleum. The feelings, no longer 
checked and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in perfect con- 
fidence: other traces of him may be false or dubious, but here 
is palpable evidence and absolute certainty. As I trod the 
sounding pavement, there was something intense and thrill- 
ing in the idea, that, in very truth, the remains of Shakspere 
were moldering beneath my feet. It was a long time before 
I could prevail upon myself to leave the place; and as I 
passed through the cLarchyard, I plucked a branch from one 
of the yew trees, the only relic that I have brought from 
Stratford. 

I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim's devotion, 
but I had a desire to see the old family seat of the Lucys at 
Charlecot, and to ramble through the park where Shakspere, 
in company with some of the roysters of Stratford, com- 
mitted his youthful offense of deer-stealing. In this hare- 
brained exploit we are told that he was taken prisoner, and 
carried to the keeper's lodge, where he remained all night in 
doleful captivity. When brought into the presence of Sir 
Thomas Lucy, his treatment must have been galling and 
humiliating; for it so wrought upon his spirit as to produce a 
rough pasquinade, which was affixed to the park gate at 
Charlecot.* 

This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the Knight so in- 
censed him, that he applied to a lawyer at Warwick to put the 
severity of the laws in force against the rhyming deer-stalker. 
Shakspere did not wait to brave the united puissance of a 
Knight of the Shire and a country attorney. He forthwith 
abandoned the pleasant banks of the Avon, and his paternal 
trade; wandered away to London; became a hanger-on to the 
theaters; then an actor; and, finally, wrote for the stage; and 
thus, through the persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford 

* The following is the only stanza extant of this lampoon : 

" A parliament member, a justice of peace, 
At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse, 
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it, 
Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it, 

He thinks himself great ; 

Yet an asse in his state, 
We allow by his ears with but asses to mate. 
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it, 
Then sing lowsje Lucy, wh«^tev^r befaU it;," 



SmATFOnD-ON-AVON. 213 

lost an indifferent wool-comber, and the world gained an im- 
mortal poet. He retained, however, for a long time, a sense 
of the harsh treatment of the Lord of Charlecot, and revenged 
himself in his writings; but in the sportive way of a good- 
natured mind. Sir Thomas is said to be the original of Jus- 
tice Shallow, and the satire is slyly fixed upon him by the 
justice's armorial bearings, which, like those of the Knight, 
had white luces * in the quarterings. 

Various attempts have been made by his biographers to 
soften and explain away this early transgression of the poet; 
but I look upon it as one of those thoughtless exploits natural 
to his situation and turn of mind. Shakspere, when young, 
had doubtless all the wildness and irregularity of an ardent, 
undisciplined, and undirected genius. The poetic tempera- 
ment has naturally something in it of the vagabond. When 
left to itself, it runs loosely and wildly, and delights in every- 
thing eccentric and licentious. It is often a turn-up of a die, 
in the gambling freaks of fate, whether a natural genius shall 
turn out a great rogue or a great poet; and had not Shaks- 
pere's mind fortunately taken a literary bias, he might have 
as daringly transcended all civil, as he has all dramatic laws. 

I have little doubt, that, in early life, when running, like 
an unbroken colt, about the neighborhood of Stratford, he 
was to be found in the company of all kinds of odd and 
anomalous characters; that he associated with all the madcaps 
of the place, and was one of those unlucky urchins, at men- 
tion of whom old men shake their heads, and predict that they 
will one day come to the gallows. To him the poaching in 
Sir Thomas Lucy's park was doubtless like a foray tj a Scot- 
tish Knight, and struck his eager, and as yet untamed, imagi- 
nation, as something delightfully adventurous.f 

* The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon, about Char- 
lecot. 

t A proof of Shakspere's random habits and associates in his youth- 
ful days may be found in a traditionary anecdote, picked up at Strat- 
ford by the elder Ireland, and mentioned in his " Picturesque Views on 
the Avon." 

About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little market town of 
Bedford, famous for its ale. Two societies of the village yeomanry used 
to meet, under the appellation of the Bedford topers, and to challenge 
the lovers of good ale of the neighboring villages, to a contest of drink- 
ing. Among others, the people of Stratford were called out to prove 
the strength of their heads ; and in the number of the champions was 
Shakspere, who, in spite of the proverb, that " they who drink beer 
will think beer," was as true to his ale as Falstaff to his sack. The 



214 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still 
remain in the possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly 
interesting from being connected with this whimsical but 
eventful circumstance in the scanty history of the bard. As 
the house stood at little more than three miles^ distance from 
Stratford, I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit, that I might 
stroll leisurely through some of those scenes from which 
Shakspere must have derived his earliest ideas of rural 
imagery. 

The country was yet naked and leafless; but English 
scenery is always verdant, and the sudden change in the tem- 
perature of the weather was surprising in its quickening 
effects upon the landscape. It was inspiring and animating 
to witness this first awakening of spring; to feel its warm 
breath stealing over the senses; to see the moist mellow earth 
beginning to put forth the green sprout and the tender blade; 
and the trees and shrubs, in their reviving tints and bursting 
buds, giving the promise of returning foliage and flower. 
The cold snowdrop, that little borderer on the skirts of win- 
ter, was to be seen with its chaste white blossoms in the small 
gardens before the cottages. The bleating of the new-dropt 
lambs was faintly heard from the fields. The sparrow twit- 
tered about the thatched eaves and budding hedges; the robin 
threw a livelier note into his late querulous wintry strain; 
and the lark, springing, up from the reeking bosom of the 
meadow, towered away into the bright fleecy cloud, pouring 
forth torrents of melody. As I watched the little songster, 
mounting up higher and higher, until his body was a mere 
speck on the white bosom of the cloud, while the ear was still 

chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the first onset, and sounded a re- 
treat while they had yet legs to carry them off the field. They haci 
scarcely marched a mile, when, their legs failing them, they were forced 
to lie down under a crab tree, where they passed the night. It is still 
standing, and goes by the name of Shakspere's tree. 

In the morning his companions awaked the bard, and proposed re- 
turning to Bedford, but he declined, saying he had had enough, having 
drunk with 

" Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, 
Haunted Hilbro', Hungry Grafton, 
Drudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford, 
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bedford." 

" The villages here alluded to," says Ireland, " still bear the epithets 
thus given them : the people of Pebworth are still famed for their skill 
on the pipe and tabor ; Hillborough is now called Haunted Hill- 
borough ; and Grafton is famous for the poverty of its soil." 



STBATFOBDON'AVOK 215 

filled with his music, it called to mind Shakspere's exquisite 
little song in " Cymbeline^^: 

" Hark ! hark ! the lark at heav'n's gate sings, 
And Phoebus 'gins arise, 
His steeds to water at those springs, 
On chalic'd flowers that lies. 

" And winking mary-buds begin 
To ope their golden eyes ; 
With every thing that pretty bin, 
My lady sweet, arise ! " 

Indeed, the whole country about here is poetic ground: 
everything is associated with the idea of Shatspere. Every 
old cottage that I saw, I fancied into some resort of his boy- 
hood, where he had acquired his intimate knowledge of rustic 
life and manners, and heard those legendary tales and wild 
superstitions which he has woven like witchcraft into his 
dramas. For in his time, we are told, it was a popular amuse- 
ment in winter evenings " to sit round the fire, and tell merry 
tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, 
dwarfs, thieves^ cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and 
friars." * 

My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, 
which made a variety of the most fanciful doublings and 
windings through a wide and fertile valley: sometimes glit- 
tering from among willows, which fringed its borders; some- 
times disappearing among groves, or beneath green banks; 
and sometimes rambling out into full view, and mak- 
ing an azure sweep round a slope of meadow land. 
This beautiful bosom of country is called the Yale of 
the Red Horse. A distant line of undulating blue hills 
seems to be its boundary, whilst all the soft intervening 
landscape lies in a manner enchained in the silver links of the 
Avon. 

After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off 
into a footpath, which led along the borders of fields and 

* Scot, in his " Discoverie of Witchcraft," enumerates a host of these 
fireside fancies. "And they have so fraid us with bull-beggars, spir- 
its, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, pans, faunes, syrens, 
kit with the can sticke, tritons, centaurs, dwarfes, giantes, imps, calcars, 
conjurors, nymphes, changelings, incubus, Robin-good-fellow, the 
sporne, the mare, the man in the oke, the hellwaine, the fier drake, the 
puckle, Tom Thombe, hobgoblins, Tom Tumbler, boneless, and sucb 
Qtlier bugs, that we were afraid of our own shadoweSo" 



216 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

Tinder hedgerows to a private gate of the park; there was a 
stile^ however, for the benefit of the pedestrian; there being 
a public right of way through the grounds. I delight in 
these hospitable estates, in which everyone has a kind of 
property — at least as far as the footpath is concerned. It 
in some measure reconciles a poor man to his lot, and what is 
more, to the better lot of his neighbor, thus to have parks and 
pleasure grounds thrown open for his recreation. He 
breathes the pure air as freely, and lolls as luxuriously under 
the shade, as the lord of the soil; and if he has not the privi- 
lege of calling all that he sees his own, he has not, at the same 
time, the trouble of paying for it, and keeping it in order. 

I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms, 
whose vast size bespoke the growth of centuries. The wind 
sounded solemnly among their branches, and the rooks cawed 
from their hereditary nests in the tree tops. The eye ranged 
through a long lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the 
view but a distant statue; and a vagrant de&r stalking like a 
shadow across the opening. 

There is something about these stately old avenues that has 
the effect of Gothic architecture, not merely from the pre- 
tended similarity of form, but from their bearing the evidence 
of long duration, and of having had their origin in a period 
of time with which we associate ideas of romantic grandeur. 
They betoken also the long-settled dignity, and proudly con- 
cenlrated independence of an ancient family; and I have 
heard a worthy but aristocratic old friend observe, when 
speaking of the sumptuous palaces of modern gentry, that 
" money could do much with stone and mortar, but, thank 
Heaven, there was no such thing as suddenly building up an 
avenue of oaks." 

It was from wandering in early life among this rich scenery, 
and about the romantic solitudes of the adjoining park of 
Fullbroke, which then formed a part of the Lucy estate, that 
some of Shakspere's commentators have supposed he derived 
his noble forest meditations of Jacques, and the enchanting 
woodland pictures in " As You Like It." It is in lonely wan- 
derings through such scenes, that the mind drinks deep but 
quiet draughts of inspiration, and becomes intensely sensible 
of the beauty and majesty of nature. The imagination 
kindles into reverie and rapture; vague but exquisite images 
and ideas keep breaking upon it; and we revel in a mute 
and almost incommunicable luxury of thought. It was in, 



8TBATF0RD-0N-AV0N. 217 

some such mood^ and perhaps under one of those very trees 
"before me, which threw their broad shades over the grassy 
banks and quivering waters of the Avon, that the poet's fancy 
may have salhed forth into that little song which breathes the 
very soul of a rural voluptuary. 

** Under the green-wood tree, 
Who loves to lie with me. 
And tune his merry throat 
Unto the sweet bird's note, 
Come hither, come hither, come hither, / 

Here shall he see 

No enemy 
But winter and rough weather." 

I had now come in sight of the house. It is a large build- 
ing of brick, with stone quoins, and is in the Gothic style of 
Queen Elizabeth's day, having been built in the first year of 
her reign. The exterior remains very nearly in its original 
state, and may be considered a fair specimen of the residence 
of a wealthy country gentleman of those days. A great gate- 
way opens from the park into a kind of courtyard in front of 
the house, ornamented with a grassplot, shrubs, and flower 
beds. The gateway is in imitation of the ancient barbican; 
being a kind of outpost, and flanked by towers; though evi- 
dently for mere ornament, instead of defense. The front of 
the house is completely in the old style; with stone shafted 
casements, a great bow window of heavy stonework, and a 
portal with armorial bearings over it, carved in stone. At 
each corner of the building is an octagon tower, surmounted 
by a gilt ball and weathercock. 

The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a bend 
just at the foot of a gently sloping bank, which sweeps down 
from the rear of the house. Large herds of deer were feed- 
ing or reposing upon its borders; and swans were sailing 
majestically upon its bosom. As I contemplated the venera- 
ble old mansion, I called to mind Falstafl's encomium on Jus- 
tice Shallow's abode, and the affected indifference and real 
vanity of the latter: 

" Falstaff. You have here a goodly dwelling and a rich. 
" Shallow. Barren, barren barren ; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John ; 
marry, good air." 

Whatever may have been the joviality of the old mansion 
in the days of Shakspere, it had now an air of stillness and 
§olitiade. The great iron gateway that opened into the corirt- 



218 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

yard was locked; there was no show of servants bustling about 
the place; the deer gazed quietly at me as I passed, being no 
longer harried by the moss-troopers of Stratford. The only 
sign of domestic life that I met with was a white cat, stealing 
with wary look and stealthy pace toward the stables, as if on 
some nefarious expedition. I must not omit to mention the 
carcass of a scoundrel crow which I saw suspended against the 
barn wall, as it shows that the Lucys still inherit that lordly 
abhorrence of poachers, and maintain that rigorous exercise 
of territorial power which was so strenuously manifested in 
the case of the bard. 

After prowling about for some time, I at length found my 
way to a lateral portal, which was the everyday entrance to 
the mansion. I was courteously received by a worthy old 
housekeeper, who, with the civility and communicativeness of 
her order, showed me the interior of the house. The greater 
part has undergone alterations, and been adapted to modern 
tastes and modes of living: there is a fine old oaken staircase; 
and the great hall, that noble feature in an ancient manor- 
house, still retains much of the appearance it must have had 
in the days of Shakspere. The ceiling is arched and lofty; 
and at one end is a gallery, in which stands an organ. The 
weapons and trophies of the chase, which formerly adorned 
the hall of a country gentleman, have made way for family 
portraits. There is a wide hospitable fireplace, calculated for 
an ample old-fashioned wood fire, formerly the rallying place 
of winter festivity. On the opposite side of the hall is the 
huge Grothic bow window, with stone shafts, which looks out 
upon the courtyard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass 
the armorial bearings of the Lucy family for many genera- 
tions, some being dated in 1558. I was delighted to observe 
in the quarterings the three white luces by which the charac- 
ter of Sir Thomas was first identified with that of Justice 
Shallow. They are mentioned in the first scene of the 
" Merry Wives of Windsor," where the Justice is in a rage 
with Falstaff for having ^ beaten his men, killed his deer, and 
broken into his lodge." The poet had no doubt the offenses 
of himself and his comrades in mind at the time, and we may 
suppose the family pride and vindictive threats of the puis- 
sant Shallow to be a caricature of the pompous indignation 
of Sir Thomas. 

" Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not : I will make a Star-Chambet 



STBATFOBD-ON-AVON. 219 

matter of it ; if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse 
Robert Shallow, Esq. 

' ' Slender. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and coram. 

' ' Shallow. A.J, cousin Slender, and custalorum. 

" Slender. Ay, and ratalorum too, and a gentleman born, master par- 
son ; who writes himself Armigero in any bill, warrant, quittance, or 
obligation, Armigero. 

' ' Shallow. Ay, that I do ; and have done any time these three hun- 
dred years. 

" Slender. All his successors gone'before him have done 't, and all his 
ancestors that come after him may ; they may give the dozen white luces 
in their coat. 

" Shallow. The council shall hear it ; it is a riot. 

" Evans. It is not meet the council hear of a riot ; there is no fear of 
Got in a riot ; the council, hear you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, 
and not to hear a riot ; take your vizaments in that, 

** Shallow. Ha ! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword should 
end it ! " 

Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait by Sir 
Peter Lely of one of the Lucy family, a great beauty of the 
time of Charles II.: the old housekeeper shook her head as 
she pointed to the picture, and informed me that this lady 
had been sadly addicted to cards, and had gambled away a 
great portion of the family estate, among which was that part 
of the park where Shakspere and his comrades had killed the 
deer. The lands thus lost have not been entirely regained 
by the family, even at the present day. It is but justice to 
this recreant dame to confess that she had a surpassingly fine 
hand and arm. 

The picture which most attracted my attention was a great 
painting over the fireplace, containing likenesses of Sir 
Thomas Lucy and his family, who inhabited the hall in the 
latter part of Shakspere's lifetime. I at first thought that it 
was the vindictive knight himself, but the housekeepei* 
assured me that it was his son; the only likeness extant of the 
former being an effigy upon his tomb in the church of the 
neighboring hamlet of Charlecot. The picture gives a lively 
idea of the costume and manners of the time. Sir Thomas is 
dressed in ruff and doublet; white shoes with roses in them; 
and has a peaked yellow, or, as Master Slender would say, " a 
cane-colored beard.^' His lady is seated on the opposite side 
of the picture in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the chil- 
dren have a most venerable stiffness and formality of dress. 
Hounds and spaniels are mingled in the family group; a hawk 
is seated on his perch in the foreground, and one of the chil- 
dren holds a bow; — all intimating the knight's skill in hunt- 



220 THE SKETGH-BOOK. 

ing, hawking, and archery — so indispensable to an accom- 
plished gentleman in those days.* 

I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the hall had 
disappeared; for I had hoped to meet with the stately elbow- 
chair of carved oak, in which the country squire of former 
days was wont to sway the scepter of empire over his rural 
domains; and in which it might be presumed the redoubted 
Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state, when the recreant 
Shakspere was brought before him. As I like to deck out 
pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased myself with the 
idea that this very hall had been the scene of the unlucky 
bard's examination on the morning after his captivity in the 
lodge. I fancied to myself the rural potentate, surrounded 
by his bodyguard of butler, pages, and blue-coated serving- 
men with their badges; while the luckless culprit was brought 
in, forlorn and chapfallen, in the custody of gamekeepers, 
huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of 
country clowns. I fancied bright faces of curious housemaids 
peeping from the half-opened doors; while from the gallery 
the fair daughters of the knight leaned gracefully forward, 
eying the youthful prisoner with that pity " that dwells in 
womanhood.'^ Who would have thought that this poor var- 
let, thus trembling before the brief authority of a country 
squire, and the sport of rustic boors, was soon to become the 
delight of princes; the theme of all tongues and ages; the 
dictator to the human mind; and was to confer immortality 
on his oppressor by a caricature and a lampoon! 

I was now invited by the butler to walk into the garden, 
and I felt inclined to visit the orchard and arbor where the 
justice treated Sir John FalstaJS and Cousin Silence "to a 
last year's pippen of his own grafiing, with a dish of carra- 
ways"; but I had already spent so much of the day in my 

* Bishop Earle, speaking of the country gentleman of his time, observes : 
" His housekeeping is seen much in the different families of dogs, and 
serving men attendant on their kennels ; and the deepness of their 
throats is the depth of his discourse, A hawk he esteems the true bur- 
den of nobility, and is exceedingly ambitious to seem delighted with the 
sport, and have his fist gloved with his jesses." And Gilpin, in his 
description of a Mr. Hastings, remarks : " He kept all sorts of hounds 
that run, buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger ; and had hawks of all kinds 
both long and short winged. His greoit hall was commonly strewed 
with marrow-bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds, spaniels, and 
terriers. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest 
terriers, hounds, and spaniels." 



STRATFOMD-ON-AVOir. 221 

rambling, that I was obliged to give up any further investiga- 
tions. When about to take my leave, I was gratified by the 
civil entreaties of the housekeeper and butler, that I would 
take some refreshment — an instance of good old hospitality, 
which I grieve to say we castle-hunters seldom meet with in 
modern days. I make no doubt it is a virtue which the 
present representative of the Lucys inherits from his ances- 
tors; for Shakspere, even in his caricature, makes Justice 
Shallow importunate in this respect, as witness his pressing 
instances to Falstaff. 

" By cock and pye, Sir, you shall not away to-night. . . I will not 
excuse you ; you shall not be excused ; excuses shall not be admitted ; 
there is no excuse shall serve ; you shall not be excused . . . Some 
pigeons, Davy ; a couple of short-legged hens ; a joint of mutton ; and 
any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell * William Cook.' " 

I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. My mind 
had become so completely possessed by the imaginary scenes 
and characters connected with it, that I seemed to be actually 
living among them. Everything brought them as it were be- 
fore my eyes; and as the door of the dining room opened, I 
almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence 
quavering forth his favorite ditty: 

" 'Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all. 
And welcome merry Shrove- tide! " 

On returning to my inn, I could not but reflect on the 
singular gift of the poet; to be able thus to spread the magic 
of his mind over the very face of nature; to give to things 
and places a charm and character not their own, and to turn 
this " working-day world " into a perfect fairyland. He is 
indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the 
senses, but upon the imagination and the heart. Under the 
wizard influence of Shakspere I had been walking all day in a 
complete delusion. I had surveyed the landscape through 
the prism of poetry, which tinged every object with the hues 
of the rainbow. I had been surrounded with fancied beings; 
with mere airy nothings, conjured up by poetic power; yet 
which, to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard 
Jacques soliloquize beneath his oak; had beheld the fair Eosa- 
lind and her companion adventuring through the woodlands; 
and, above all, had been once more present in spirit with fat 
Jack Falstaff^ and his contemporaries^ from th? pignit Jus- 



222 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

tice Shallow^ down to the gentle Master Slender, and the 
sweet Anne Page. Ten thousand honors and blessings on the 
bard who has thus gilded the dull realities of life with inno- 
cent illusions; who has spread exquisite and unbought pleas- 
ures in my checkered path; and beguiled my spirit in many a 
lonely hour, with all the cordial and cheerful sympathies of 
social life! 

As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my return, I 
paused to contemplate the distant church in which the poet 
lies buried, and could not but exult in the malediction which 
has kept his ashes undisturbed in its quiet and hallowed 
vaults. What honor could his name have derived from being 
mingled in dusty companionship with the epitaphs and 
escutcheons and venal eulogiums of a titled multitude? 
"What would a crowded corner in Westminster Abbey have 
been, compared with this reverend pile, which seems to stand 
in beautiful loneliness as his sole mausoleum! The solicitude 
about the grave may be but the offspring of an overwrought 
sensibility; but human nature is made up of foibles and 
prejudices; and its best and tenderest affections are mingled 
with these factitious feelings. He who has sought renow^n 
about the world, and has reaped a full harvest of worldly 
favor, will find, after all, that there is no love, no admiration, 
no applause, so sweet to the soul as that which springs up in 
his native place. It is there that he seeks to be gathered in 
peace and honor, among his kindred and his early friends. 
And when the weary heart and failing head begin to warn 
him that the evening of life is drawing on, he turns as fondly 
as does the infant to the mother's arms, to sink to sleep in the 
bosom of the scene of his childhood. 

How would it have cheered the spirit of the youthful bard, 
when, wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubtful world, he 
cast back a heavy look upon his paternal ho^me, could he have 
foreseen that, before many years, he should return to it cov- 
ered with renown; that his name should become the boast 
and glory of his native place; that his ashes should be reli- 
giously guarded as its most precious treasure; and that its 
lessening spire, on which his eyes were fixed in tearful con- 
templation, should one day become the beacon, towering 
amidst the gentle landscape, to guide the literary pilgrim of 
every nation to his tomb! 



TRAITS OF INDIAN GHABAGTEB. 223 



TEAITS OF INDIAN CHAEACTEE. 

** I appeal to any white man if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, 
and he gave him not to eat ; if ever he came cold and naked, and he 
clothed him not." — Speech of an Indian Chief. 

Theke is something in the character and habits of the 
North American savage, taken in connection with the scenery 
over which he is accustomed to range,, its vast lakes^, bound- 
less forests, majestic rivers, and trackless plains, that is, to my 
mind, wonderfully striking and sublime. He is formed for 
the wilderness, as the Arab is for the desert. His nature is 
stern, simple, and enduring; fitted to grapple with difficul- 
ties, and to support privations. There seems but little soil in 
his heart for the growth of the kindly virtues; and yet, if we 
would but take the trouble to penetrate through that proud 
stoicism and habitual taciturnity, which lock up his charac- 
ter from casual observation, we should find him linked to his 
iellow-man of civilized life by more of those sjrmpathies and 
affections than are usually ascribed to him. 

It has been the lot of the unfortunate aborigines of 
America, in the early periods of colonization, to be doubly 
wronged by the white men. They have been dispossessed of 
their hereditary possessions, by mercenary and frequently 
wanton warfare; and their characters have been traduced by 
bigoted and interested writers. The colonist has often 
treated them like beasts of the forest; and the author has en- 
deavored to justify him in his outrages. The former found 
it easier to exterminate than to civilize' — the latter to vilify 
than to discriminate. The appellations of savage and pagan 
were deemed sufficient to sanction the hostilities of both; and 
thus the poor wanderers of the forest were persecuted and de- 
famed, not because they were guilty, but because they were 
ignorant. 

The rights of the savage have seldom been properly appre- 
ciated or respected by the white man. In peace, he has too 
often been the dupe of artful traffic; in war, he has been re- 
garded as a ferocious animal, whose life or death was a ques- 
tion of mere precaution and convenience. Man is cruelly 
wasteful of life when his own safety is endangered, and he is 
sheltered by impunity; and little mercy is to be expected from 
him when he feels the sting of the reptile^ and is conscious of 
the power to destroy. 



224 THE SKETCH-BOOK, 

The same prejudices which were indulged thus early, exist 
in common circulation at the present day. Certain learned 
societies have, it is true, with laudable diligence, endeavored 
to investigate and record the real characters and manners of 
the Indian tribes; the American government, too, has wisely 
and humanely exerted itself to inculcate a friendly and for- 
bearing spirit toward them, and to protect them from fraud 
and injustice.* The current opinion of the Indian character, 
however, is too apt to be formed from the miserable hordes 
which infest the frontiers, and hang on the skirts of the set- 
tlements. These are too commonly composed of degenerate 
beings, corrupted and enfeebled by the vices of society, with- 
out being benefited by its civilization. That proud independ- 
ence which formed the main pillar of savage virtue, has been 
shaken down, and the whole moral fabric lies in ruins. Their 
spirits are humiliated and debased by a sense of inferiority, 
and their native courage cowed and daunted by the superior 
knowledge and power of their enlightened neighbors. So- 
ciety has advanced upon them like one of those withering airs 
that will sometimes breathe desolation over a whole region of 
fertility. It has enervated their strength, multiplied their 
diseases, and superinduced upon their original barbarity the 
low vices of artificial life. It has given them a thousand 
superfluous wants, whilst it has diminished their means of 
mere existence. It has driven before it the animals of the 
chase, who fly from the sound of the ax and the smoke of the 
settlement, and seek refuge in the depths of remoter forests 
and yet untrodden wilds. Thus do we too often find the In- 
dians on our frontiers to be the mere wrecks and remnants of 
once powerful tribes, who have lingered in the vicinity of the 
settlements, and sunk into precarious and vagabond existence. 
Poverty, repining and hopeless poverty, a canker of the mind 
unknown in savage life, corrodes their spirits and blights 
every free and noble quality of their natures. They become 
drunken, indolent, feeble, thievish, and pusillanimous. They 
loiter like vagrants about the settlements, among spacious 

* The American government Las been indefatigable in its exertions to 
meliorate the situation of the Indians, and to introduce among them the 
arts of civilization, and civil and religious knowledge. To protect them 
from the frauds of the white traders, no purchase of land from them by 
individuals is permitted ; nor is any person allowed to receive lands from 
them as a present, without the express sanction of government. Thes^ 
precautions are strictly enforced.-. 



TBAITS OF IimiAN GHABACTEB. 225 

dwellings, replete with elaborate comforts, wMcli only render 
them sensible of the comparative wretchedness of their own 
condition. Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes; 
but they are excluded from the banquet. Plenty revels over 
the fields; but they are starving in the midst of its abundance: 
the whole wilderness has blossomed into a garden; but they 
feel as reptiles that infest it. 

How different was their state, while yet the undisputed 
lords of the soil! Their wants were few, and the means of 
gratification within their reach. They saw everyone around 
them sharing the same lot, enduring the same hardships, feed- 
ing on the same aliments, arrayed in the same rude garments. 
No roof then rose, but was open to the homeless stranger; no 
smoke curled among the trees, but he was welcome to sit 
down by its fire and join the hunter in his repast. "For," 
says an old historian of New England, " their life is so void of 
care, and they are so loving also, that they make use of those 
things they enjoy as common goods, and are therein so com- 
passionate, that rather than one should starve through want, 
they would starve all; thus do they pass their time merrily, 
not regarding our pomp, but are better content with their 
own, which some men esteem so meanly of." Such were the 
Indians, whilst in the pride and energy of their primitive 
natures; they resemble those wild plants which thrive best in 
the shades of the forest, but shrink from the hand of cultiva- 
tion, and perish beneath the influence of the sun. 

In discussing the savage character, writers have been too 
prone to indulge in vulgar prejudice and passionate exaggera- 
tion, instead of the candid temper of true philosophy. They 
have not sufficiently considered the peculiar circumstances 
in which the Indians have been placed, and the peculiar prin- 
ciples under which they have been educated. STo being acts 
more rigidly from rule than the Indian. His whole conduct 
is regulated according to some general maxims early im- 
planted in his mind. The moral laws that govern him are, 
to be sure, but few; but then he conforms to them all; — the 
white man abounds in laws of religion, morals, and manners, 
but how many does he violate! 

A frequent ground of accusation against the Indians is 
their disregard of treaties, and the treachery and wantonness 
with which, in time of apparent peace, they will suddenly fly 
to hostilities. The intercourse of the white men with the In- 
dians^ however^ is too apt to be cold; distrustful, oppressive, 



226 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

and insulting. They seldom treat them with that confidence 
and frankness which are indispensable to real friendship; nor 
is sufficient caution observed not to offend against those feel- 
ings of pride or superstition, which often prompt the Indian 
to hostility quicker than mere considerations of interest. 
The solitary savage feels silently, but acutely. His sensibili- 
ties are not diffused over so wide a surface as those of the 
white man; but they run in steadier and deeper channels. 
His pride, his affections, his superstitions, are all directed 
toward fewer objects; but the wounds inflicted on them are 
proportionably severe, and furnish motives of hostility which 
we cannot sufficiently appreciate. Where a community is also 
limited in number, and forms one great patriarchal family, as 
in an Indian tribe, the injury of an individual is the injury 
of the whole, and the sentiment of venigeance is almost instan- 
taneously diffused. One council fire is sufficient for the dis- 
cussion and arrangement of a plan of hostilities. Here all 
the fighting men and sages assemble. Eloquence and super- 
stition combine to inflame the minds of the warriors. The 
orator awakens their martial ardor, and they are wrought up 
to a kind of religious desperation, by the visions of the 
prophet and the dreamer. 

An instance of one of those sudden exasperations, arising 
from a motive peculiar to the Indian character, is extant in an 
old record of the early settlement of Massachusetts. The 
planters of Plymouth had defaced the monuments of the dead 
at Passonagessit, and had plundered the grave of the Sachem's 
mother of some skins with which it had been decorated. The 
Indians are remarkable for the reverence which they enter- 
tain for the sepulchers of their kindred. Tribes that have 
passed generations exiled from the abodes of their ancestors, 
when by chance they have been traveling in the vicinity, have 
been known to turn aside from the highway, and, guided by 
wonderfully accurate tradition, have crossed the country for 
miles to some tumulus, buried perhaps in woods, where the 
bones of their tribe were anciently deposited; and there have 
passed hours in silent meditation. Influenced by this sublime 
and holy feeling, the Sachem, whose mother's tomb had been 
violated, gathered his men together, and addressed them in 
the following beautifully simple and pathetic harangue; a 
curious specimen of Indian eloquence, and an affecting in- 
stance of filial piety in a savage: 

" When last the glorious light of all the sky was under- 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHABACTEB. 227 

neath this globe, and birds grew silent, I began to settle, as 
my custom is, to take repose. Before mine eyes were fast 
closed, methought I saw a vision, at which my spirit was much 
troubled; and trembling at that doleful sight, a spirit cried 
aloud, ^Behold, my son, whom I have cherished, see the 
breasts that gave thee suck, the hands that lapped thee warm, 
and fed thee oft. Canst thou forget to take revenge of those 
wild people, who have defaced my monument in a despiteful 
manner, disdaining our antiquities and honorable customs? 
See, now, the Sachem's grave lies like the common people, 
defaced by an ignoble race. Thy mother doth complain, and 
implores thy aid against this thievish people, who have newly 
intruded on our land. If this be suffered, I shall not rest 
quiet in my everlasting habitation.' This said, the spirit van- 
ished, and I, all in a sweat, not able scarce to speak, began to 
get some strength, and recollected my spirits that were fled, 
and determined tO' demand your counsel and assistance." 

I have adduced this anecdote at some length, as it tends to 
show how these sudden acts of hostility, which have been 
attributed to caprice and perfidy, may often arise from deep 
and generous motives, which our inattention to Indian char- 
acter and customs prevents our properly appreciating. 

Another ground of violent outcry against the Indians, is 
their barbarity to the vanquished. This had its origin partly 
in policy and partly in superstition. The tribes, though 
sometimes called nations, were never so formidable in their 
numbers, but the loss of several wariors was sensibly felt; 
this was particularly the case when they had been frequently 
engaged in warfare; and many an instance occurs in Indian 
history, where a tribe, that had long been formidable to its 
neighbors, has been broken up and driven away, by the cap- 
ture and massacre of its principal fighting men. There was 
a strong temptation, therefore, to the victor, to be merciless; 
not so much to gratify any cruel revenge, as to provide for 
future security. The Indians had also the superstitious be- 
lief, frequent among barbarous nations, and prevalent also 
among the ancients, that the manes of their friends who had 
fallen in battle were soothed by the blood of the captives. 
The prisoners, however, who are not thus sacrificed, are 
adopted into their families in the place of the slain, and are 
treated with the confidence and affection of relatives and 
friends; nay, so hospitable and tender is their entertainment, 
tb^t whm. tjm alternative is offered them^ tJi^y will oiim. 



228 THE 8KETCE.B00K. 

prefer to remain with their adopted brethren, rather than re^ 
turn to the home and the friends of their yoiith. 

The cruelty of the Indians toward their prisoners has been 
heightened since the colonization of the whites. What was 
formerly a compliance with policy and superstition, has been 
exasperated into a gratification of vengeance. They cannot 
but be sensible that the white men are the usurpers of their 
ancient dominion, the cause of their degradation, and the 
gradual destroyers of their race. They go forth to battle, 
smarting with injuries and indignities which they have indi- 
vidually suffered, and they are driven to madness and despair 
by the wide-spreading desolation and the overwhelming ruin 
of European warfare. The whites have too frequently set 
them an example of violence, by burning their villages and 
la3dng waste their slender means of subsistence; and yet they 
wonder that savages do not show moderation and magna- 
nimity toward those who have left them nothing but mere 
existence and wretchedness. 

We .stigmatize the Indians, also, as cowardly and treacher- 
ous, because they use stratagem in warfare, in preference to 
open force; but in this they are fully justified by their rude 
code of honor. They are early taught that stratagem is 
praiseworthy: the bravest warrior thinks it nO' disgrace to 
lurk in silence, and take every advantage of his foe: he tri- 
umphs in the superior craft and sagacity by which he has 
been enabled to surprise and destroy an enemy. Indeed, man 
is naturally more prone to subtilty than open valor, owing to 
his physical weakness in comparison with other animals. 
They are endowed with natural weapons of defense: with 
horns, with tusks, with hcofs, and talons: but man has to de- 
pend on his superior sagacity. In all his encounters with 
these, his proper enemies, he resorts to stratagem; and when 
he perversely turns his hostility against his fellow-man, he at 
first continues the same subtle mode of warfare. 

The natural principle of war is to do' the most harm to our 
enemy, with the least harm to ourselves; and this of course 
is to be effected by stratagem. That chivalrous courage 
which induces us to despise the suggestions of prudence, and 
to rush in the face of certain danger, is the offspring of 
society, and produced by education. It is honorable, because 
it is in fact the triumph of lofty sentiment over an instinct- 
ive repugnance to pain, and over those yearnings after per- 
sonal ease and security, which society has condemned as 



TRAITS OF INDIAN CHARACTER. 229 

ignoble. It is kept alive by pride and the fear of shame; and 
thus the dread of real evil is overcome by the superior dread 
of an evil which exists but in the imagination. It has been 
cherished and stimulated also by various means. It has been 
the theme of spirit-stirring song and chivalrous story. The 
poet and minstrel have delighted to shed round it the splen- 
dors of fiction; and even the historian has forgotten the sober 
gravity of narration, and broken forth into enthusiasm and 
rhapsody in its praise. Triumphs and gorgeous pageants 
have been its reward: monuments, on which art has exhausted 
its skill, and opulence its treasures, have been erected to per- 
petuate a nation^'s gratitude and admiration. Thus arti- 
ficially excited, courage has risen to an extraordinary and 
factitious degree of heroism; and, arrayed in all the glorious 
" pomp and circumstance of war,'^ this turbulent quality has 
even been able to ecKpse many of those quiet, but invaluable 
virtues, which silently ennoble the human character^ and 
swell the tide of human happiness. 

But if courage intrinsically consists in the defiance of dan- 
ger and pain, the life of the Indian is a continual exhibition 
of it. He lives in a state of perpetual hostility and risk. 
Peril and adventure are congenial to his nature; or rather 
seem necessary to arouse his faculties and to give an interest 
to his existence. Surrounded by hostile tribes whose mode 
of warfare is by ambush and surprisal, he is always prepared 
for fight, and lives with his weapons in his hands. As the 
ship careers in fearful singleness through the solitudes of 
ocean, — as the bird mingles among clouds and storms, and 
wings its way, a mere speck, across the pathless fields of air; 
so the Indian holds his course, silent, solitary, but undaunted, 
through the boundless bosom of the wilderness. His expedi- 
tions may vie in distance and danger with the pilgrimage of 
the devotee, or the crusade of the knight-errant. He 
traverses vast forests, exposed to the hazards of lonely sick- 
ness, of lurking enemies, and pining famine. Stormy lakes, 
those great inland seas, are no obstacles to his wanderings: in 
his light canoe of bark, he sports like a feather on their waves, 
and darts with the swiftness of an arrow down the roaring 
rapids of the rivers. His very subsistence is snatched from 
the midst of toil and peril. He gains his food by the hard- 
ships and dangers of the chase; he wraps himself in the spoils 
of the bear, the panther, and the buffalo; and sleeps among 
the thunders of the cataract. 



230 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

ISTo hero of ancient or modem days can surpass the Indian 
in his lofty contempt of death, and the fortitude with which 
he sustains its crudest affliction. Indeed, we here behold 
him rising superior to the white man, in consequence of his 
peculiar education. The latter rushes to glorious death at 
the cannon's mouth; the former calmly contemplates its ap- 
proach, and triumphantly endures it, amidst the varied tor- 
ments of surrounding foes, and the protracted agonies of fire. 
He even takes a pride in taunting his persecutors, and provok- 
ing their ingenuity of torture; and as the devouring flames 
prey on his very vitals, and the flesh shrinks from the sinews, 
he raises his last song of triumph, breathing the defiance of 
an unconquered heart, and invoking the spirits of his fathers 
to witness that he dies without a groan. 

N'otwithstanding the obloquy with which the early his- 
torians have overshadowed the characters of the unfortunate 
natives, some bright gleams occasionally break through, which 
throw a degree of melancholy luster on their memories. 
Facts are occasionally to be met with in the rude annals of the 
eastern provinces, which, though recorded with the coloring 
of prejudice and bigotry, yet speak for themselves; and will 
be dwelt on with applause and sympathy, when prejudice 
shall have passed away. 

In one of the homely narratives of the Indian wars in New 
England, there is a touching account of the desolation carried 
into the tribe of the Pequod Indians. Humanity shrinks 
from the cold-blooded detail of indiscriminate butchery. In 
one place we read of the surp-risal of an Indian fort in the 
night, when the wigwams were wrapped in flames, and the 
miserable inhabitants shot down and slain in attempting to 
escape, " all being dispatched and ended in the course of an 
hour." After a series of similar transactions, " our soldiers," 
as the historian piously observes, " being resolved by God's 
assistance to make a final destruction of them," the unhappy 
savages being hunted from their homes and fortresses, and 
pursued with fire and sword, a scanty but gallant band, the 
sad remnant of the Pequod warriors, with their wives and 
children, took refuge in a swamp. 

Burning with indignation, and rendered sullen by despair; 
with hearts bursting with grief at the destruction of their 
tribe, and spirits galled and sore at the fancied ignominy of 
their defeat, they refused to ask their lives at the hands of an 
insulting foe, and preferred death to submission. 



TBAIT8 OF INDIAN GHABACTEB. 231 

As the night drew on, they were surrounded in their dismal 
retreat, so as to render escape impracticable. Thus situated, 
their enemy " plied them with shot all the time, by which 
means many were killed and hurled in the mire." In the 
darkness and fog that preceded the dawn of day, some few 
broke through the besiegers and escaped into the woods: 
^Hhe rest were left to the conquerors, of which many were 
killed in the swamp, like sullen dogs who would rather, in 
their self-willedness and madness, sit still and be shot 
through, or cut to pieces," than implore for mercy. When 
the day broke upon this handful of forlorn but dauntless 
spirits, the soldiers, we are told, entering the swamp, " saw 
several heaps of them sitting close together, upon whom they 
discharged their pieces, laden with ten or twelve pistol-bullets 
at a time; putting the muzzles of the pieces under the boughs, 
within a few yards of them; so as., besides those that were 
found dead, many more were killed and sunk into the mire, 
and never were minded more by friend or foe." 

Can anyone read this plain unvarnished tale, without ad- 
miring the stern resolution, the unbending pride, the loftiness 
of spirit, that seemed to nerve the hearts of these self-taught 
heroes, and to raise them above the instinctive feelings of hu- 
man nature? When the Gauls laid waste the city of Rome, 
they found the senators clothed in their robes and seated with 
stern tranquillity in their curule chairs; in this manner they 
suffered death without resistance or even supplication. Such 
conduct was, in them, applauded as noble and magnanimous 
—in the hapless Indians, it was reviled as obstinate and 
sullen. How truly are we the dupes of show and circum- 
stance! How different is virtue, clothed in purple and en- 
throned in state, from virtue naked and destitute, and perish- 
ing obscurely in a wilderness! 

But I forbear to dwell on these gloomy pictures. The 
eastern tribes have long since disappeared; the forests that 
sheltered them have been laid low, and scarce any traces re- 
main of them in the thickly settled States of New England, 
excepting here and there the Indian name of a village or a 
stream. And such must sooner or later be the fate of those 
other tribes which skirt the frontiers, and have occasionally 
been inveigled from their forests tO' mingle in the wars of 
white men. In a little while, and they will go the way that 
their brethren have gone before. The few hordes which still 
linger about the shores of Huron and Superior, and the tribu- 



232 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

tary streams of tlie Mississippi, will share the fate of those 
tribes that once spread over Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
and lorded it along the proud hanks of the Hudson; of that 
gigantic race said to have existed on the borders of the Sus- 
quehanna; and of those various nations that flourished about 
the Potowmac and the Kappahanoc, and that peopled the 
forests of the vast valley of Shenandoah. They will vanish 
like vapor from the face of the earth; their very history will 
be lost in f orgetfulness; and " the places that now know 
them will know them no more forever.^^ Or if, perchance, 
some dubious memorial of them should survive, it may be in, 
the romantic dreams of the poet, to people in imagination his 
glades and groves, like the fauns and satyrs and sylvan deities 
of antiquity. But should he venture upon the dark story of 
their wrongs and wretchedness; should he tell how they were 
invaded, corrupted, despoiled; driven from their native 
abodes and the sepulchers of their fathers; hunted like wild 
beasts about the earth; and sent down with violence and 
butchery to the grave — posterity will either turn with horror 
and incredulity from the tale, or blush with indignation at 
the inhumanity of their forefathers. " We are driven back," 
said an old warrior, " until we can retreat no farther — our 
hatchets axe broken, our bows are snapped, our fires are nearly 
extinguished — a little longer and the white man will cease to 
persecute us — ^for we shall cease to exist." 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 

AN INDIAN" MEMOIK. 

As monumental bronze unchanged his look : 
A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook ; 
Train'd, from his tree-rock'd cradle to his bier. 
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook 
Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear — 
A stoic of the woods — a man without a tear, 

— Campbell. 

It is to be regretted that those early writers who treated of 
the discovery and settlement of America have not given us 
more particular and candid accounts of the remarkable char- 
acters that flourished in savage life. The scanty anecdotes 
which have reached us are full of peculiarity and interest; 
they furnish us with nearer glimpses of human nature, and 



PHILIP OF POEANOKET. 233 

skow what man is in a comparatively primitive state, and 
what he owes to civilization. There is something of the 
charm of discovery in lighting upon these wild and unex- 
plored tracts of human nature; in witnessing, as it were, the 
native growth of moral sentiment; and perceiving those 
generous and romantic qualities which have been artificially 
cultivated by society, vegetating in spontaneous hardihood 
and rude magnificence. 

In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost 
the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of 
his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The 
bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away, 
or softened down by the leveling influence of what is termed 
good breeding; and he practices so many petty deceptions, 
and affects so many generous sentiments, for the purposes of 
popularity, that it is difiicult to distinguish his real from his 
artificial character. The Indian, on the contrary, free from 
the restraints and refinements of polished life, and, in a great 
degree, a solitary and independent being, obeys the impulses 
of his inclination or the dictates of his judgment; and thus 
the attributes of his nature, being freely indulged, grow singly 
great and striking. Society is like a lawn, where every rough- 
ness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the 
eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; 
he, however, who would study I^ature in its wildness and 
variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen; 
must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice. 

These reflections arose on casually looking through a vol- 
ume of early colonial history, wherein are recorded, with great 
bitterness, the outrages of the Indians, and their wars with 
the settlers of N'ew England. It is painful to perceive, even 
from these partial narratives, how the footsteps of civilization 
may be traced in the blood of the aborigines; how easily the 
colonists were moved to hostility by the lust of conquest; how 
merciless and exterminating was their warfare. The imagin- 
ation shrinks at the idea, how many intellectual beings were 
hunted from the earth — how many brave and noble hearts, 
of Nature's sterling coinage, were broken down and trampled 
in the dust! 

Such was the fate of Philip of Pokakoket, an Indian war- 
rior, whose name was once a terror throughout Massachusetts 
and Connecticut. He was the most distinguished of a num- 
ber of contemporary Sachems, who reigned over the Pequods, 



234 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

the Narrhagansets, the Wampanoags, and the other eastern 
tribes,, at the time of the first settlement of New England: 
a band of native untaught heroes; who made the most gener- 
ous struggle of which human nature is capable; fighting to 
the last gasp in the cause of their country, without a hope of 
victory or a thought of renown. Worthy of an age of poetry, 
and fit subjects for local story and romantic fiction, they have 
left scarcely any authentic traces on the page of history, but 
stalk, like gigantic shadows, in the dim twilight of tradition.* 
When the Pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are called by 
their descendants, first took refuge on the shores of the New 
World, from the religious persecutions of the Old, their situa- 
tion was to the last degree gloomy and disheartening. Few 
in number, and that number rapidly perishing away through 
sickness and hardships; surrounded by a howling wilderness 
and savage tribes; exposed to the rigors of an almost arctic 
winter, and the vicissitudes of an ever-shifting climate; their 
minds were filled with doleful forebodings, and nothing pre- 
served them from sinking into despondency but the strong 
excitement of religious enthusiasm. In this forlorn situation 
they were visited by Massasoit, chief Sagamore of the Wampa- 
noags, a powerful chief, who reigned over a great extent of 
country. Instead of taking advantage of the scanty number 
of the strangers, and expelling them from his territories into 
which they had intruded, he seemed at once to conceive for 
them a generous friendship, and extended toward them the 
rights of primitive hospitality. He came early in the spring 
to their settlement of New Plymouth, attended by a mere 
handful of followers; entered into a solemn league of peace 
and amity; sold them a portion of the soil, ane^ promised to 
secure for them the good will of his savage allies. Whatever 
may be said of Indian perfidy, it is certain that the integrity 
and good faith of Massasoit have never been impeached. He 
continued a firm and magnanimous friend of the white men; 
suffering them to extend their possessions, and to strengthen 
themselves in the land; and betraying no jealousy of their 
increasing power and prosperity. Shortly before his death, 
he came once more to New Plymouth, with his son Alexander, 
for the purpose of renewing the covenant of peace, and of 
securing it to his posterity. 

* While correcting the proof-sheets of this article, the author is in- 
formed that a celebrated English poet has nearly finished a heroic poem 
pn the story of Philip of Pokanoket. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. ^35 

At this conference^ he endeavored to protect the religion 
of his forefathers from the encroaching zeal of the mission- 
aries; and stipulated that no further attempt should be made 
to draw oS his people from their ancient faith; but, finding 
the English obstinately opposed to any such conditions, he 
mildly relinquished the demand. Almost the last act of his 
life was to bring his two sons, Alexander and Phihp (as they 
had been named by the English) to the residence of a principal 
settler, recommending mutual kindness and confidence; and 
entreating that the same love and amity which had existed 
between the white men and himself, might be continued 
afterward with his children. The good old Sachem died in 
peace, and was happily gathered tO' his fathers before sorrow 
came upon his tribe; his children remained behind to experi- 
ence the ingratitude of white men. 

His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him. He was of a 
quick and impetuous temper, and proudly tenacious of his 
hereditary rights and dignity. The intrusive policy and dic- 
tatorial conduct of the strangers excited his indignation; and 
he beheld with uneasiness their exterminating wars with the 
neighboring tribes. He was doomed soon to incur their hos- 
tility, being accused of plotting with the Narrhagansets to 
rise against the English and drive them from the land. It 
is impossible to say whether this accusation was warranted by 
facts or was grounded on mere suspicions. It is evident, 
however, by the violent and overbearing measures of the set- 
tlers, that they had by this time begun to feel conscious of 
the rapid increase of their power, and to grow harsh and in- 
considerate in their treatment of the natives. They dis- 
patched an armed force to seize upon Alexander, and to bring 
him before their court. He was traced from his woodland 
haunts, and surprised at a hunting house, where he was re- 
posing with a band of his followers, unarmed, after the toils 
of the chase. The suddenness of his arrest, and the outrage 
offered to his sovereign dignity, so preyed upon the irascible 
feelings of this proud savage, as to throw him into a raging 
fever; he was permitted to return home on condition of send- 
ing his son as a pledge for his reappearance; but the blow he 
had received was fatal, and before he reached his home he fell 
a victim to the agonies of a wounded spirit. 

The successor of Alexander was Metamocet, or King Philip, 
as he was called by the settlers, on account of his lofty spirit 
and ambitious temper. These, together with his well-known 



236 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

energy and enterprise, had rendered him an object of great 
jealousy and apprehension, and he was accused of having 
always cherished a secret and implacable hostility toward the 
whites. Such may very probably, and very naturally, have 
been the case. He considered them as originally but mere 
intruders into the country, who had presumed upon indul- 
gence, and were extending an influence baneful to savage life. 
He saw the whole race of his countrymen melting before them 
from the face of the earth; their territories slipping from their 
hands, and their tribes becoming feeble, scattered, and de- 
pendent. It may be said that the soil was originally pur- 
chased by the settlers; but who does not know the nature of 
Indian purchases, in the early periods of colonization? The 
Europeans always made thrifty bargains, through their 
superior adroitness in traffic; and they gained vast accessions 
of territory, by easily provoked hostilities. An uncultivated 
savage is never a nice inquirer into the refinements of law, 
by which an injury may be gradually and legally inflicted. 
Leading facts are all by which he judges; and it was enough 
for Philip to know, that before the intrusion of the Europeans 
his countrymen were lords of the soil, and that now they were 
becoming vagabonds in the land of their fathers. 

But whatever may have been his feelings of general hos- 
tility, and his particular indignation at the treatment of his 
brother, he suppressed them for the present; renewed the con- 
tract with the settlers, and resided peaceably for many years 
at Pokanoket, or, as it was called by the English, Mount 
Hope,* the ancient seat of dominion of his tribe. Sus- 
picions, however, which were at first but vague and indefinite, 
began to acquire form and substance; and he was at length 
charged with attempting to instigate the various eastern tribes 
to rise at once, and, by a simultaneous effort, to throw off the 
yoke of their oppressors. It is difficult at this distant period 
to assign the proper credit due these early accusations against 
the Indians. There was a proneness to suspicion, and an 
aptness to acts of violence on the part of the whites, that 
gave weight and importance to every idle tale. Informers 
abounded, where tale bearing met with countenance and re- 
ward; and the sword was readily unsheathed, when its success 
was certain, and it carved out empire. 

The only positive evidence on record against Philip is the 
accusation of one Sausaman, a renegado Indian, whose natu- 

* Now Bristol, Khode Island. 



PHILIP OF POKANOEET. 23V 

ral cunning had been quickened by a partial education which 
he had received among the settlers. He changed his faith 
and his allegiance two or three times, with a facility that 
evinced the looseness of his principles. He had acted for 
some time as Philip's confidential secretary and counselor, 
and had enjoyed his bounty and protection. Finding, how- 
ever, that the clouds of adversity were gathering round his 
patron, he abandoned his service and went over to the whites; 
and, in order to gain their favor, charged his former bene- 
factor with plotting against their safety. A rigorous investi- 
gation took place. Philip and several of his subjects sub- 
mitted to be examined, but nothing was proved against them. 
The settlers, however, had now gone too far to retract; they 
had previously determined that Philip was a dangerous neigh- 
bor; they had pubHcly evinced their distrust; and had done 
enough to insure his hostility; according, therefore, to the 
usual mode of reasoning in these cases, his destruction had 
become necessary to their security. Sausaman, the treacher- 
ous informer, was shortly after found dead in a pond, having 
fallen a victim to the vengeance of his tribe. Three Indians, 
one of whom was a friend and counselor of Philip, were ap- 
prehended and tried, and, on the testimony of one very ques- 
tionable witness, were condemned and executed as murderers. 

This treatment of his subjects and ignominious punishment 
of his friend, outraged the pride and exasperated the passions 
of Philip. The bolt which had fallen thus at his very feet, 
awakened him to the gathering storm, and he determined to 
trust himself no longer in the power of the wliite men. The 
fate of his insulted and broken-hearted brother still rankled 
in his mind; and he had a further warning in the tragical 
story of Miantonimo, a great Sachem of the l!^arrhagansets, 
who, after manfully facing his accusers before a tribunal of 
the colonists, exculpating himself from a charge of conspiracy, 
and receiving assurances of amity, had been perfidiously dis- 
patched at their instigation. Philip, therefore, gathered his 
fighting men about him; persuaded all strangers that he could, 
to join his cause; sent the women and children to the Narrha- 
gansets for safety; and wherever he appeared, was continually 
surrounded by armed warriors. 

When the two parties were thus in a state of distrust and 
irritation, the least spark was sufficient to set them in a flame. 
The Indians, having weapons in their hands, grew mischiev- 
ous, and cona^iitted various petty depredations. In one of 



238 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

their maraudings, a warrior was fired upon and killed by a 
settler. This was the signal for open hostilities; the Indians 
pressed to revenge the death of their comrade, and the alarm 
of war resounded through the Plymouth colony. 

In the early chronicles of these dark and melancholy times, 
we meet with many indications of the diseased state of the 
public mind. The gloom of religious abstraction, and the 
wildness of their situation, among trackless forests and savage 
tribes, had disposed the colonists to superstitious fancies, and 
had filled their imaginations with the frightful chimeras of 
witchcraft and spectrology. They were much given also to a 
belief in omens. The troubles with Philip and his Indians 
were preceded, we are told, by a variety of those awful warn- 
ings which forerun great and public calamities. The perfect 
form of an Indian bow appeared in the air at I*^ew Plymouth, 
which was looked upon by the inhabitants as a " prodigious 
apparition." At Hadley, Northampton, and other towns in 
their neighborhood, " was heard the report of a great piece of 
ordnance, with the shaking of the earth and a considerable 
echo." * Others were alarmed on a still sunshiny morning, 
by the discharge of guns and muskets; bullets seemed to whis- 
tle past them, and the noise of drums resounded in the air, 
seeming to pass away to the westward; others fancied that 
they heard the galloping of horses over their heads; and cer- 
tain monstrous births which took place about the time, filled 
the superstitious in some towns with doleful forebodings. 
Many of these portentious sights and sounds may be ascribed 
to natural phenomena; to the northern lights which occur 
vividly in those latitudes; the meteors which explode in the 
air; the casual rushing of a blast through the top branches of 
the forest; the crash of falling trees or disrupted rocks; and 
to those other uncouth sounds and echoes, which will some- 
times strike the ear so strangely amidst the profound still- 
ness of woodland solitudes. These may have startled some 
melancholy imaginations, may have been exaggerated by the 
love for the marvelous, and listened to with that avidity with 
which we devour whatever is fearful and mysterious. The 
universal currency of these superstitious fancies, and the 
grave record made of them by one of the learned men of 
the day, are strongly characteristic of the times. 

The nature of the contest that ensued was such as too often 
distinguishes the warfare between civilized men and savages. 

* Tlie Bev, Increase Mather's History. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 239 

On the part of the whites, it was conducted with superior, 
skill and success; but with a wastefulness of the blood, and a^ 
disregard of the natural rights of their antagonists: on the 
part of the Indians it was waged with the desperation of men 
fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect from peace, 
but humiliation, dependence, and decay. 

The events of the war are transmitted to us by a worthy 
clergyman of the time, who dwells with horror and indigna- 
tion on every hostile act of the Indians, however justifiable, 
whilst he mentions with applause the most sanguinary atroci- 
ties of the whites. Philip is reviled as a murderer and a 
traitor; without considering that he was a true-bom prince, 
gallantly fighting at the head of his subjects to avenge the 
wrongs of his family; to retrieve the tottering power of his 
line; and to deliver his native land from the oppression of 
usurping strangers. 

The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if such had 
really been formed, was worthy of a capacious mind, and, had 
it not been prematurely discovered, might have been over- 
whelming in its consequences. The war that actually broke 
out was but a war of detail; a mere succession of casual ex- 
ploits and unconnected enterprises. Still it sets forth the 
military genius and daring prowess of Philip; and wherever, 
in the prejudiced and passionate narrations that have been 
given of it, we can arrive at simple facts, we find him display- 
ing a vigorous mind; a fertility in expedients; a contempt of 
suffering and hardship, and an unconquerable resolution, 
that command our sjrmpathy and applause. 

Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, he 
threw himself into the depths of those vast and trackless for- 
ests that skirted the settlements, and were almost impervious 
to an3rthing but a wild beast or an Indian. Here he gathered 
together his forces, like the storm accumulating its stores of 
mischief in the bosom of the thunder cloud, and would sud- 
denly emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying 
havoc and dismay into the villages. There were now and then 
indications of these impending ravages, that filled the minds 
of the colonists with awe and apprehension. The report of 
a distant gun would perhaps be heard from the solitary wood- 
land where there was known to be no white man; the cattle 
which had been wandering in the woods would sometimes 
return home wounded; or an Indian or two would be seen 
lurking about the skirts of the forest, and suddenly disap- 



HO TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

pearing; as the lightning will sometimes be seen playing 
silently about the edge of the cloud that is brewing up the 
tempest. 

Though sometimes pursued, and even surrounded by the 
settlers, yet Philip as often escaped almost miraculously from 
their toils; and plunging into the wilderness, would be lost 
to all search or inquiry until he again emerged at some 
far distant quarter, laying the country desolate. Among his 
strongholds were the great swamps or morasses, which ex- 
tend in some parts of New England; composed of loose bogs 
of deep black mud; perplexed with thickets, brambles, rank 
weeds, the shattered and moldering trunks of fallen trees, 
overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The uncertain foot- 
ing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy wilds, rendered 
them almost impracticable to the white man, though the 
Indian could thread their labyrinths with the agility of a 
deer. Into one of these, the great swamp of Pocasset Neck, 
was Philip once driven with a band of his followers. The 
English did not dare to pursue him, fearing to venture into 
these dark and frightful recesses, where they might perish in 
fens and miry pits, or be shot down by lurking foes. They 
therefore invested the entrance to the neck, and began to build 
a fort, with the thought of starving out the foe; but Philip 
and his warriors wafted themselves on a raft over an arm of 
the sea, in the dead of. night, leaving the women and children 
behind; and escaped away to the westward, kindling the flames 
of war among the tribes of Massachusetts and the Nipmuck 
country, and threatening the colony of Connecticut. 

In this way Philip became the theme of universal appre- 
hension. The mystery in which he was enveloped exag- 
gerated his real terrors. He was an evil that walked in dark- 
ness; whose coming none could foresee, and against which 
none knew when to be on the alert. The whole country 
abounded with rumors and alarms. Philip seemed almost 
possessed of ubiquity; for, in whatever part of the widely ex- 
tended frontier an irruption from the forest took place, Philip 
was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions also 
were circulated concerning him. He was said to deal in nec- 
romancy, and to be attended by an old Indian witch or 
prophetess, whom he consulted, and who assisted him by her 
charms and incantations. This indeed was frequently the 
case with Indian chiefs; either through their own credulity, 
or to act upon that of their followers: and the influence of the 



PmilP OP POKANOS:£}T. ^41 

prophet and the dreamer over Indian superstition has been 
fully evidenced in recent instances of savage warfare. 

At the time that Philip effected his escape from Pocasset, 
his fortunes were in a desperate condition. His forces had 
been thinned by repeated fights^ and he had lost almost the 
whole of his resources. In this time of adversity he found a 
faithful friend in Canonchet, Chief Sachem of all the ISTarrha- 
gansets. He was the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great 
Sachem, who, as already mentioned, after an honorable ac- 
quittal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately put 
to death at the perfidious instigations of the settlers. " He 
was the heir,^^ says the old chronicler, " of all his father's 
pride and insolence, as well as of his malice toward the Eng- 
lish;" he certainly was the heir of his insults and injuries, 
and the legitimate avenger of his murder. Though he had 
forborne to take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he 
received Philip and his broken forces with open arms; and 
gave them the most generous countenance and support. This 
at once drew upon him the hostility of the English; and it 
was determined to strike a signal blow, that should involve 
both the Sachems in one common ruin. A great force was, 
therefore, gathered together from Massachusetts, Plymouth, 
and Connecticut, and was sent into the Narrhaganset country 
in the depth of winter, when the swamps, being frozen and 
leafless, could be traversed with comparative facility, and 
would no longer afford dark and impenetrable fastnesses to 
the Indians. 

Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed the 
greater part of his stores, together with the old, the infirm, 
the women and children of his tribe, to a strong fortress; 
where he and Philip had likewise drawn up the flower of their 
forces. This fortress, deemed by the Indians impregnable, 
was situated upon a rising mound or kind of island, of five or 
six acres, in the midst of a swamp; it was constructed with a 
degree of judgment and skill vastly superior to what is usually 
displayed in Indian fortification, and indicative of the martial 
genius of these two chieftains. 

Guided by a renegado Indian, the English penetrated, 
through December snows, to this stronghold, and came upon 
the garrison by surprise. The fight was fierce and tumultu- 
ous. The assailants were repulsed in their first attack, and 
several of their bravest officers were shot down in the act of 
gtoxming the fortress, sword in hand. The assault was re* 



242 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

newed with greater success. A lodgment was effected. The 
Indians were driven from one post to another. They dis- 
puted their ground inch by inch, fighting with the fury of 
despair. Most of their veterans were cut to pieces; and after 
a long and bloody battle, Philip and Canonchet, with a hand- 
ful of surviving warriors, retreated from the fort, and took 
refuge in the thickets of the surrounding forest. 

The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort; the whole 
was soon in a blaze; many of the old men, the women and 
the children, perished in the flames. This last outrage over- 
came even the stoicism of the savage. The neighboring 
woods resounded with the yells of rage and despair, uttered 
by the fugitive warriors as they beheld the destruction of 
their dwellings, and heard the agonizing cries of their wives 
and offspring. " The burning of the wigwams," says a con- 
temporary writer, " the shrieks and cries of the women and 
children, and the yelling of the warriors, exhibited a most 
horrible and afiecting scene, so that it greatly moved some 
of the soldiers." The same writer cautiously adds, " They 
were in much doubt then, and afterward seriously inquired, 
whether burning their enemies alive could be consistent with 
humanity, and the benevolent principles of the gospel." * 

The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet is worthy 
of particular mention: the last scene of his life is one of the 
noblest instances on record of Indian magnanimity. 

Broken down in his power and resources by this signal 
defeat, yet faithful to his ally and to the hapless cause which 
he had espoused, he rejected all overtures of peace, offered 
on condition of betraying Philip and his followers, and de- 
clared that " he would fight it out to the last man, rather 
than become a servant to the English." His home being 
destroyed; his country harassed and laid waste by the incur- 
sions of the conquerors; he was obliged to wander away to the 
banks of the Connecticut; where he formed a rallying point 
to the whole body of western Indians, and laid waste several 
of the English settlements. 

Early in the spring, he departed on a hazardous expedition, 
with only thirty chosen men, to penetrate to Seaconck, in the 
vicinity of Mount Hope, and to procure seed corn to plant 
for the sustenance of his troops. This little band of ad- 
venturers had passed safely through the Pequod country, and 
were in the center of the Narrhaganset, resting at some wig- 

* MS. of the Rev. W. Ruggles. 



PEILIP OF POEANOKET. 243 

wains near Pautucket Eiver, when an alarm was given of an 
approaching enemy. Having but seven men by him at the 
time^ Canonehet dispatched two of them to the top of a 
neighboring hill, to bring intelligence of the foe. 

Panic-struck by the appearance of a troop of English and 
Indians rapidly advancing, they fled in breathless terror past 
their chieftain, without stopping to inform him of the danger. 
Canonehet sent another scout, who did the same. He then 
sent two more, one of whom, hurrying back in confusion and 
afl:right, told him that the whole British army was at hand. 
Canonehet saw there was no choice but immediate flight. He 
attempted to escape round the hill, but was perceived and 
hotly pursued by the hostile Indians, and a few of the fleetest 
of the English. Finding the swiftest pursuer close upon his 
heels, he threw off, first his blanket, then his silver-laced 
coat and belt of peag, by which his enemies knew him to be 
Canonehet, and redoubled the eagerness of pursuit. 

At length, in dashing through the river, his foot slipped 
upon a stone, and he fell so deep as to wet his gun. This 
accident so struck him with despair, that, as he afterward 
confessed, " his heart and his bowels turned within him, and 
he became like a rotten stick, void of strength." 

To such a degree was he unnerved, that, being seized by a 
Pequod Indian within a short distance of the river, he made 
no resistance, though a man of great vigor of body and bold- 
ness of heart. But on being made prisoner, the whole pride 
of his spirit arose within him; and from that moment, we find, 
in the anecdotes given by his enemies, nothing but repeated 
flashes of elevated and prince-like heroism. Being questioned 
by one of the English who first came up with him, and who 
had not attained his twenty-second year, the proud-hearted 
warrior, looking with lofty contempt npon his youthful 
countenance, replied, " You are a child — you cannot under- 
stand matters of war — let your brother or your chief come 
— him will I answer." 

Though repeated offers were made to him of his life, on 
condition of submitting with his nation to the English, yet 
he rejected them with disdain, and refused to send any pro- 
posals of the kind to the great body of his subjects; saying, 
that he knew none of them would comply. Being reproached 
with his breach of faith toward the whites; his boast that he 
would not deliver up a Wampanoag, nor the parings of a 
Wftniganoag^s nail; aijd his threat that he wQ^id bum th§ 



244 THE 8KETGH-B00K. 

English alive in their houses; he disdained to justify himself^ 
haughtily answering that others were as forward for the war 
as himself, " and he desired to hear no more thereof." 

So noble and unshaken a spirit, so true a fidelity to his 
cause and his friend, might have touched the feelings of the 
generous and the brave; but Canonchet was an Indian; a 
being toward whom war had no courtesy, humanity no law, 
religion no compassion — he was condemned to die. The last 
words of his that are recorded are worthy the greatness of his 
soul. When sentence of death was passed upon him, he ob- 
served, "that he liked it well, for he should die before his 
heart was soft, or he had spoken anything unworthy of him- 
self." His enemies gave him the death of a soldier, for he 
was shot at Stoningham, by three young Sachems of his own 
rank. 

The defeat of the Narrhaganset fortress, and the death of 
Canonchet, were fatal blows to the fortunes of King Philip. 
He made an ineffectual attempt to raise a head of war, by 
stirring up the Mohawks to take arms; but though possessed 
of the native talents of a statesman, his arts were counteracted 
by the superior arts of his enlightened enemies, and the terror 
of their warlike skill began to subdue the resolution of the 
neighboring tribes. The unfortunate chieftain saw himself 
daily stripped of power, and his ranks rapidly thinning around 
him. Some were suborned by the whites; others fell victims 
to hunger and fatigue, and to the frequent attacks by which 
they were harassed. His stores were all captured; his chosen 
friends were swept away from before his eyes; his uncle was 
shot down by his side; his sister was carried into captivity; 
and in one of his narrow escapes he was compelled to leave 
his beloved wife and only son to the mercy of the enemy. 
" His ruin," says the historian, " being thus gradually carried 
on, his misery was not prevented, but augmented thereby; 
being himself made acquainted with the sense and experi- 
mental feeling of the captivity of his children, loss of friends, 
slaughter of his subjects, bereavement of all family relations, 
and being stripped of all outward comforts, before his own 
life should be taken away." 

To fill up the measure of his misfortunes, his own followers 
began to plot against his life, that by sacrificing him they 
might purchase dishonorable safety. Through treachery, a 
number of his faithful adherents, the subjects of Wetamoe, 
an Indian princess of Pocasset, a near kinswonaen and coi^-^ 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 245 

federate of Philip, were betrayed into the hands of the enemy. 
Wetamoe was among them at the time, and attempted to 
make her escape by crossing a neighboring river: either ex- 
hausted by swimming, or starved with cold and hunger, she 
was found dead and naked near the water side. But perse- 
cution ceased not at the grave: even death, the refuge of 
the wretched, where the wicked commonly cease from troub- 
ling, was no protection to this outcast female, whose great 
crime was affectionate fidelity to her kinsman and her friend. 
Her corpse was the object of unmanly and dastardly venge- 
ance; the head was severed from the body and set upon a 
pole, and was thus exposed, at Taunton, to the view of her 
captive subjects. They immediately recognized the features 
of their unfortunate queen, and were so affected at this barba- 
rous spectacle, that we are told they broke forth into the 
"most horrid and diabolical lamentations." 

However Philip had borne up against the complicated mis- 
eries and misfortunes that surrounded him, the treachery of 
his followers seemed to wring his heart and reduce him to 
despondency. It is said that " he never rejoiced afterward, 
nor had success in any of his designs." The spring of hope 
was broken — the ardor of enterprise was extinguished: he 
looked around, and all was danger and darkness; there was no 
eye to pity, nor any arm that could bring deliverance. With 
a scanty band of followers, who still remained true to his 
desperate fortunes, the unhappy Philip wandered back to the 
vicinity of Mount Hope, the ancient dwelling of his fathers. 
Here he lurked about, like a specter, among the scenes of 
former power and prosperity, now bereft of home, of family, 
and friends. There needs no better picture of his destitute 
and piteous situation, than that furnished by the homely pen 
of the chronicler, who is unwarily enlisting the feelings of 
the reader in favor of the hapless warrior whom he reviles. 
" Philip," he says, " like a savage wild beast, having been 
hunted by the English forces through the woods above a hun- 
dred miles backward and forward, at last was driven to his 
own den upon Mount Hope, where he retired, with a few of 
his best friends, into a swamp, which proved but a prison to 
keep him fast till the messengers of death came by divine per- 
mission to execute vengeance upon him." 

Even at this last refuge of desperation and despair, a sullen 
grandeur gathers round his memory. We picture him to 
ourselves seated among his careworn followers, brooding in 



246 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

silence over his blasted fortunes, and acquiring a savage sub- 
limity from the wildness and dreariness of his lurking place. 
Defeated, but not dismayed — crushed to the earth, but not 
humiliated — he seemed to grow more haughty beneath dis- 
aster, and to experience a fierce satisfaction in draining the 
last dregs of bitterness. Little minds are tamed and sub- 
dued by misfortune; but great minds rise above it. The very 
idea of submission awakened the fury of Philip, and he smote 
to death one of his followers, who proposed an expedient of 
peace. The brother of the victim made his escape, and in 
revenge betrayed the retreat of his chieftain. A body of 
white men and Indians were immediately dispatched to the 
swamp where Philip lay crouched, glaring with fury and de- 
spair. Before he was aware of their approach, they had begun 
to surround him. In a little while he saw five of his trustiest 
followers laid dead at his feet; all resistance was vain; he 
rushed forth from his covert, and made a headlong attempt 
at escape, but was shot through the heart by u renegado 
Indian of his own nation. 

Such is the scanty story of the brave, but unfortunate King 
Philip; persecuted while living, slandered and dishonored 
when dead. If, however, we consider even the prejudiced 
anecdotes furnished us by his enemies, we may perceive in 
them traces of amiable and lofty character, sufficient to 
awaken sympathy for his fate and respect for his memory. 
We find, that amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious 
passions of constant warfare, he was alive to the softer feelings 
of connubial love and paternal tenderness, and to the gener- 
ous sentiment of friendship. The captivity of his " beloved 
wife and only son " is mentioned with exultation, as causing 
him poignant misery: the death of any near friend is tri- 
umphantly recorded as a new blow on his sensibilities; but 
the treachery and desertion of many of his followers, in whose 
affections he had confided, is said to have desolated his heart, 
and to have bereaved him of all farther comfort. He was a 
patriot, attached to his native soil — a prince true to his sub- 
jects, and indignant of their wrongs^ — a soldier, daring in 
battle, firm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of hunger, of every 
variety of bodily suffering, and ready to perish in the cause 
he had espoused. Proud of heart, and with an untamable 
love of natural liberty, he preferred to enjoy it among the 
beasts of the forests, or in the dismal and famished recesses 
of swamps and morasses, rather than bow his haughty spirit 



JOHN BULL. 247 

to submission, and live dependent and despised in the ease 
and luxury of the settlements. With heroic qualities and 
bold achievements that would have graced a civilized warrior, 
and have rendered him the theme of the poet and the his- 
torian, he lived a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, 
and went down, like a lonely bark, foundering amid darkness 
and tempest — without a pitying eye to weep his fall^ or a 
friendly hand to record his struggle. 



JOHN BULL. 

An old song, made by an aged old pate, 
Of an old worshipful gentleman who had a great estate, 
That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate, 
And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate. 

With an old study fill'd full of learned old books. 
With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks, 
With an old buttery-hatch worn quite off the hooks. 
And an old kitchen that maintained half-a-dozen old cooks. 

. Like an old courtier, etc, 

— Old So?ig. 

Theee is no species of humor in which the English more 
excel, than that which consists iji! caricaturing and giving 
ludicrous appellations or nicknames. In this way they have 
whimsically designated, not merely individuals, but nations; 
and in their fondness for pushing a joke, they have not spared 
even themselves. One would think that, in personifying it- 
self, a nation would be apt to picture something grand, heroic, 
and imposing; but it is characteristic of the peculiar humor 
of the English, and of their love for what is blunt, comic, and 
familiar, that they have embodied their national oddities in 
the figure of a sturdy, corpulent old fellow, with a three- 
cornered hat, red waistcoat, leather breeches, and a stout 
oaken cudgel. Thus they have taken a singular delight in 
exhibiting their most private foibles in a laughable point of 
view; and have been so successful in their delineation, that 
there is scarcely a being in actual existence more absolutely 
present to the public mind, than that eccentric personage, 
John Bull. 

Perhaps the continual contemplation of the character thus 
drawn of them, has contributed to fix it upon the nation; and 
thus to give reality to what at first may have been painted in 
a great measure from the imagination. Men are apt to ac- 



248 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

quire peculiarities that are continually ascribed to them. The 
common orders of English seem wonderfully captivated with 
the leau ideal which they have formed of John Bull, and 
endeavor to act up to the broad caricature that is perpetu- 
ally before their eyes. Unluckily, they sometimes make their 
boasted BuUism an apology for their prejudice or grossness; 
and this I have especially noticed among those truly homebred 
and genuine sons of the soil who have never migrated beyond 
the sound of Bow Bells. If one of these should be a little 
uncouth in speech, and apt to utter impertinent truths, he 
confesses that he is a real John Bull, and always speaks his 
mind. If he now and then flies into an unreasonable burst 
of passion about trifles, he observes that John Bull is a 
choleric old blade, but then his passion is over in a moment, 
and he bears no malice. If he betrays a coarseness of taste, 
and an insensibility to foreign refinements, he thanks Heaven 
for his ignorance — he is plain John Bull, and he has no relish 
for frippery and knickknacks. His very proneness to be 
gulled by strangers, and to pay extravagantly for absurdities, 
is excused under the plea of munificence — for John is always 
more generous than wise. 

Thus, under the name of John Bull, he will contrive to 
argue every fault into a merit, and will frankly convict him- 
self of being the honestest fellow in existence. 

However little, therefore, the character may have suited in 
the first instance, it has gradually adapted itself to the nation, 
or rather they have adapted themselves to each other; and a 
stranger who wishes to study English peculiarities, may gather 
much valuable information from the innumerable portraits of 
John Bull, as exhibited in the windows of the caricature 
shops. Still, however, he is one of those fertile humorists, 
that are continually throwing out new portraits, and pre- 
senting different aspects from different points of view; and, 
often as he has been described, I cannot resist the temptation 
to give a slight sketch of him, such as he has met my eye. 

John Bull, to all appearance, is a plain downright matter- 
of-fact fellow, with much less of poetry about him than rich 
prose. There is little of romance in his nature, but a vast 
deal of strong natural feeling. He excels in humor more than 
in wit; is jolly rather than gay; melancholy rather than 
morose; can easily be moved to a sudden tear, or surprised 
into a broad laugh; but he loathes sentiment, and has no turn 
for li^ht pleasantry. He is a boon companion, if you allow 



JOHN BULL. 249 

him to have his humor^ and to talk about himself; and he will 
stand by a friend in a quarrel, with Hf e and purse, however 
soundly he may be cudgeled. 

In this last respect, to tell the truth, he has a propensity 
to be somewhat too ready. He is a busy-minded personage, 
who thinks not merely -or himself and family, but for all the 
country round, and is most generally disposed to be every- 
body's champion. He is continually volunteering his services 
to settle his neighbor's affairs, and takes it in great dudgeon 
if they engage in any matter of consequence without asking 
his advice; though he seldom engages in any friendly office 
of the kind without finishing by getting into a squabble with 
all parties and then railing bitterly at their ingratitude. He 
unluckily took lessons in his youth in the noble science of 
defense, and having accomplished himself in the use of his 
limbs and his weapons, and become a perfect master at box- 
ing and cudgel play, he has had a troublesome life of it ever 
since. He cannot hear of a quarrel between the most dis- 
tant of his neighbors, but he begins incontinently to fumble 
with the head of his cudgel, and consider whether his interest 
or honor does not require that he should meddle in the broil. 
Indeed, he has extended his relations of pride and policy so 
completely over the whole country, that no event can take 
place, without infringing some of his finely spun rights and 
dignities. Couched in his little domain, with these filaments 
stretching forth in every direction, he is like some choleric, 
bottle-bellied old spider, who has woven his web over a whole 
chamber, so that a fly cannot buzz, nor a breeze blow, without 
startling his repose, and causing him to sally forth wrathfuUy 
from his den. 

Though really a good-hearted, good-tempered old fellow 
at bottom, yet he is singularly fond of being in the midst of 
contention. It is one of his peculiarities, however, that he 
only relishes the beginning of an affray; he always goes into 
a fight with alacrity, but comes out of it grumbling even 
when victorious; and though no one fights with more ob- 
stinacy to carry a contested point, yet, when the battle is over, 
and he comes to the reconciliation, he is so much taken 
up with the mere shaking of hands, that he is apt to let his 
antagonist pocket all that they have been quarreling about. 
It is not, therefore, fighting that he ought so much to be on 
his guard against, as making friends. It is difficult to cudgel 
Jiim out of a farthing; but put him in a good humor, and you 



250 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

may bargain him out of all the money in his pocket. He is 
like a stout ship, which will weather the roughest storm 
uninjured, but roll its masts overboard in the succeeding 
calm. 

He is a little fond of playing the magnifico abroad; of pull- 
ing out a long purse; flinging his money bravely about at 
boxing matches, horse races, cock fights, and carrying a high 
head among " gentlemen of the fancy "; but immediately 
after one of these fits of extravagance, he will be taken with 
violent qualms of economy; stop short at the most trivial 
expenditure; talk desperately of being ruined and brought 
upon the parish; and in such moods will not pay the smallest 
tradesman's bill without violent altercation. He is, in fact, 
the most punctual and discontented paymaster in the world; 
drawing his coin out of his breeches pocket with infinite re- 
luctance; paying to the uttermost farthing, but accompanying 
every guinea with a growl. 

With all his talk of economy, however, he is a bountiful 
provider, and a hospitable housekeeper. His economy is of 
a whimsical kind, its chief object being to devise how he may 
afford to be extravagant; for he will begrudge himself a beef- 
steak and pint of port one day, that he may roast an ox 
whole, broach a hogshead of ale, and treat all his neighbors 
on the next. 

His domestic establishment is enormously expensive: not 
so much from any great outward parade, as from the great 
consumption of solid beef and pudding; the vast number of 
followers he feeds and clothes; and his singular disposition to 
pay hugely for small services. He is a most kind and indul- 
gent master, and, provided his servants humor his peculiari- 
ties, flatter his vanity a little now and then, and do not 
peculate grossly on him before his face, they may manage him 
to perfection. Everything that lives on him seems to thrive 
and grow fat. His house servants are well paid, and pam- 
pered, and have little to do. His horses are sleek and lazy, 
and prance slowly before his state carriage; and his house- 
dogs sleep quietly about the door, and will hardly bark at a 
housebreaker. 

His family mansion is an old castellated manor-house, gray 
with age, and of a most venerable, though weather-beaten, 
appearance. It has been built upon no regular plan, but is 
a vast accumulation of parts, erected in various tastes and 
ages. The center bears evident traces of Saxon architecturCj 



JOHN BULL. 251 

and is as solid as ponderous stone and old English oak can 
make it. Like all the relies of that style, it is full of obscure 
passages, intricate mazes, and dusky chambers; and though 
these have been partially lighted up in modern days, yet 
there are many places where you must still grope in the dark. 
Additions have been made to the original edifice from time to 
time, and great alterations have taken place; towers and bat- 
tlements have been erected during wars and tumults; wings 
built in time of peace; and oiithouses, lodges, and ofiices run 
up according to the whim or convenience of different genera- 
tions, until it has become one of the most spacious, rambling 
tenements imaginable. An entire wing is taken up with the 
family chapel; a reverend pile, that must once have been ex- 
ceedingly sumptuous, and, indeed, in spite of having been 
altered and simplified at various periods, has still a look of 
solemn religious pomp. Its walls within are storied with the 
monuments of John^s ancestors; and it is snugly fitted up 
with soft cushions and well-lined chairs, where such of his 
family as are inclined to church services, may doze com- 
fortably in the discharge of their duties. 

To keep up this chapel has cost John much money; but he 
is stanch in his religion, and piqued in his zeal, from the cir- 
cumstance that many dissenting chapels have been erected 
in his vicinity, and several of his neighbors, with whom he 
has had quarrels, are strong Papists. 

To do the duties of the chapel, he maintains, at a large 
expense, a pious and portly family chaplain. He is a most 
learned and decorous personage, and a truly well-bred Chris- 
tian, who always backs the old gentleman in his opinions, 
winks discreetly at his little peccadilloes, rebukes the children 
when refractory, and is of great use in exhorting the tenants 
to read their Bibles, say their prayers, and, above all, to pay 
their rents punctually, and without grumbling. 

The family apartments are in a very antiquated taste, some- 
what heavy, and often inconvenient, but full of the solemn 
magnificence of former times; fitted up with rich, though 
faded tapestry, unwieldy furniture, and loads of massy, gor- 
geous old plate. The vast fireplaces, ample kitchens, ex- 
tensive cellars, and sumptuous banqueting halls, — all speak 
of the roaring hospitality of days of yore, of which the modern 
festivity at the manor-house is but a shadow. There are, 
however, complete suites of rooms apparently deserted and 
time-worn; and towers and turrets that are tottering to decay; 



252 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

so that in high winds there is danger of their tumbling about 
the ears of the household. 

John has frequently been advised to have the old edifice 
thoroughly overhauled, and to have some of the useless parts 
pulled down, and the others strengthened with their ma- 
terials; but the old gentleman always grows testy on this 
subject. He swears the house is an excellent house- — that it 
is tight and weatherproof, and not to be shaken by tempests 
— that it has stood for several hundred years, and therefore, 
it is not likely to tumble down now — that as to its being in- 
convenient, his family is accustomed to the inconveniences, 
and would not be comfortable without them — that as to its 
unwieldy size and irregular construction, these result from its 
being the growth of centuries, and being improved by the 
wisdom of every generation — that an old family, like his, 
requires a large house to dwell in; new, upstart families may 
live in modern cottages and snug boxes, but an old English 
family should inhabit an old English manor-house. If you 
point out any part of the building as superfluous, he insists 
that it is material to the strength or decoration of the rest, 
and the harmony of the whole; and swears that the parts are 
so built into each other, that if you pull down one you run 
the risk of having the whole about your ears. 

The secret of the matter is, that John has a great disposi- 
tion to protect and patronize. He thinks it indispensable to 
the dignity of an ancient and honorable family, to be bounte- 
ous in its appointments, and to be eaten up by dependants; 
and so, partly from pride, and partly from kind-heartedness, 
he makes it a rule always to give shelter and maintenance to 
his superannuated servants. 

The consequence is, that, like many other venerable family 
establishments, his manor is encumbered by old retainers 
whom he cannot turn off, and an old style which he cannot 
lay down. His mansion is like a great hospital of invalids, 
and, with all its magnitude, is not a whit too large for its 
inhabitants. Kot a nook or corner but is of use in housing 
some useless personage. Groups of veteran beef-eaters, 
gouty pensioners, and retired heroes of the buttery and the 
larder, are seen lolling about its walls, crawling over its lawns, 
dozing under its trees, or sunning themselves upon the 
benches at its doors. Every office and outhouse is garrisoned 
by these supernumeraries a7 \ their families; for they are amaz- 
ingly prolific, and when they die off, are sure to leave John a 



JOHN BVLL. 253 

legacy of hungry mouths to be provided for. A mattock can- 
not be struck against the most moldering tumble-down tower, 
but out pops, from some cranny or loophole, the gray pate 
of some superannuated hanger-on, who has lived at John's 
expense all his life, and makes the most grievous outcry, at 
their pulling down the roof from over the head of a worn-out 
servant of the family. This is an appeal that John's honest 
heart never can withstand; so that a man who has faithfully 
eaten his beef and pudding all his life, is sure to be rewarded 
with a pipe and tankard in his old days. 

A great part of his park, also, is turned into paddocks, 
where his broken-down chargers are turned loose to graze 
undisturbed for the remainder of their existence — a worthy 
example of grateful recollection, which if some of his neigh- 
bors were to imitate, would not be to their discredit. Indeed, 
it is one of his great pleasures to point out these old steeds to 
his visitors, to dwell on their good qualities, extol their past 
services, and boast, with some little vainglory, of the peril- 
ous adventures and hardy exploits through which they have 
carried him. 

He is given, however, to indulge his veneration for family 
usages, and family encumbrances, to a whimsical extent. His 
manor is infested by gangs of gypsies; yet he will not suffer 
them to be driven off, because they have infested the place 
time out of mind, and been regular poachers upon every 
generation of the family. He will scarcely permit a dry 
branch to be lopped from the great trees that surround the 
house, lest it should molest the rooks, that have bred there 
for centuries. Owls have taken possession of the dove-cote, 
but they are hereditary owls,, and must not be disturbed. 
Swallows have nearly choked up every chimney with their 
nests; martins build in every frieze and cornice; crows flutter 
about the towers, and perch on every weathercock; and old 
gray-headed rats may be seen in every quarter of the house, 
running in and out of their holes undauntedly in broad day- 
light. In short, John has such a reverence for everything 
that has been long in the family, that he will not hear even 
of abuses being reformed, because they are good old family 
abuses. 

All these whims and habits have concurred woefully to drain 
the old gentleman's purse; and as he prides himself on punc- 
tuality in money matters, and wishes to maintain his credit in 
th^ neighborhood^ they have caused him great perplexity \tx 



254 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

meeting his engagements. This, too, has been increased by 
the altercations and heartburnings which are eontinnally tak- 
ing place in his family. His children have been brought up 
to different callings, and are of different ways of thinking; 
and as they have always been allowed to speak their minds 
freely, they do not fail to exercise the privilege most clamor- 
ously in the present posture of his affairs. Some stand up for 
the honor of the race, and are clear that the old establishment 
should be kept up in all its state, whatever may be the cost; 
others, who are more prudent and considerate, entreat the 
old gentleman to retrench his expenses, and put his whole 
system of housekeeping on a more moderate footing. He 
has, indeed, at times, seemed inclined to listen to their opin- 
ions, but their wholesome advice has been completely defeated 
by the obstreperous conduct of one of his sons. This is a 
noisy rattle-pated fellow, of rather low habits, who neglects 
his business to frequent alehouses — ^is the orator of village 
clubs, and a complete oracle among the poorest of his father^s 
tenants. No sooner does he hear any of his brothers mention 
reform or retrenchment, than up he jumps, takes the words 
out of their mouths, and roars out for an overturn. When 
his tongue is once going, nothing can stop it. He rants 
about the room; hectors the old man about his spendthrift 
practices; ridicules his tastes and pursuits; insists that he 
shall turn the old servants out of doors; give the broken-down 
horses to the hounds; send the fat chaplain packing and take 
a field-preacher in his place — nay, that the whole family man- 
sion shall be leveled with the ground, and a plain one of brick 
and mortar built in its place. He rails at every social enter- 
tainment and family festivity, and skulks away growling to 
the alehouse whenever an equipage drives up to the door. 
Though constantly complaining of the emptiness of his purse, 
yet he scruples not to spend all his pocket money in these 
tavern convocations, and even runs up scores for the liquor 
over which he preaches about his father's extravagance. 

It may readily be imagined how little such thwarting 
agrees with the old cavalier's fiery temperament. He has 
become so irritable, from repeated crossings, that the mere 
mention of retrenchment or reform is a signal for a brawl 
between him and the tavern oracle. As the latter is too 
sturdy and refractory for paternal discipline, having grown 
out of all fear of the cudgel, they have frequent scenes of 
wordy warfare, which at times run so high^ th^t John !§ foiii 



JOHN BULL. 255 

to call in the aid of his son Tom^ an ofi&cer who has served 
abroad, but is at present living at home, on half pay. This 
last is sure to stand by the old gentleman, right or wrong; 
likes nothing so much as a racketing roistering life; and is 
ready, at wink or nod, to out saber, and flourish it over the 
orator's head, if he dares to array himself against paternal 
authority. 

These family dissensions, as usual, have got abroad, and are 
rare food for scandal in John's neighborhood. People begin 
to look wise, and shake their heads, whenever his affairs are 
mentioned. They all " hope that matters are not so bad with 
him as represented; but when a man's own children begin to 
rail at his extravagance, things must be badly managed. 
They understand he is mortgaged over head and ears, and is 
continually dabbling with money lenders. He is certainly 
an open-handed old gentleman, but they fear he has lived 
too fast; indeed, they never knew any good come of this fond- 
ness for hunting, racing, reveling, and prize-fighting. In 
short, Mr. Bull's estate is a very fine one, and has been in 
the family a long while; but for all that, they have known 
many finer estates come to the hammer." 

What is worst of all, is the effect which these pecuniary 
embarrassments and domestic feuds have had on the poor man 
himself. Instead of that jolly round corporation, and smug 
rosy face, which he used to present, he has of late become as 
shriveled and shrunk as a frostbitten apple. His scarlet gold- 
laced waistcoat, which bellied out so bravely in those pros- 
perous days when he sailed before the wind, now hangs 
loosely about him like a mainsail in a calm. His leather 
breeches are all in folds and wrinkles; and apparently have 
much ado to hold up the boots that yawn on both sides of his 
once sturdy legs. 

Instead of strutting about, as formerly, with his three- 
cornered hat on one side; flourishing his cudgel, and bringing 
it down every moment with a hearty thump upon the ground; 
looking everyone sturdily in the face, and trolling out a 
stave of a catch or drinking song; he now goes about whist- 
ling thoughtfully to himself, with his head drooping down, 
his cudgel tucked under his arm, and his hands thrust to the 
bottom of his breeches pockets, which are evidently empty. 

Such is the plight of honest John Bull at present; yet, for 
all this, the old fellow's spirit is as tall and as gallant as ever. 
If you drjp the least expression of S3rmpathy or concern^ he 



256 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

takes fire in an instant; swears that lie is the richest and 
stoutest fellow in the country; talks of la3dng out large sums 
to adorn his house or to buy another estate; and, with a 
valiant swagger and grasping of his cudgel, longs exceedingly 
to have another bout at quarterstaff. 

Though there may be something rather whimsical in all 
this, yet I confess I cannot look upon John's situation with- 
out strong f eehngs of interest. With all his odd humors and 
obstinate prejudices he is a sterling-hearted old blade. He 
may not be so wonderfully fine a fellow as he thinks him- 
self, but he is at least twice as good as his neighbors represent 
him. His virtues are all his own; all plain, homebred, and 
unaffected. His very faults smack of the raciness of his good 
qualities. His extravagance savors of his generosity; his 
quarrelsomeness, of his courage; his credulity, of his open 
faith; his vanity, of his pride; and his bluntness of his 
sincerity. They are all the redundancies of a rich and liberal 
character. He is like his own oak; rough without, but sound 
and solid within; whose bark abounds in excrescences in pro- 
portion to the growth and grandeur of the timber; and whose 
branches make a fearful groaning and murmuring in the least 
storm, from their very magnitude and luxuriance. There is 
something, too, in the appearance of his old family mansion, 
that is extremely poetical and picturesque; and, as long as it 
can be rendered comfortably habitable, I should almost trem- 
ble to see it meddled with during the present conflict of tastes 
and opinions. Some of his advisers are no doubt good archi- 
tects, that might be of service; but many, I fear, are mere 
levelers, who, when they had once got to work with their 
mattocks on the venerable edifice, would never stop until they 
had brought it to the ground, and perhaps buried themselves 
among the ruins. All that I wish, is, that John's present 
troubles may teach him more prudence in future; that he 
may cease to distress his mind about other people's affairs; 
that he may give up the fruitless attempt to promote the good 
of his neighbors, and the peace and happiness of the world, 
by dint of the cudgel; that he may remain quietly at home; 
gradually get his house into repair; cultivate his rich estate 
according to his fancy; husband his income — ^if he thinks 
proper; bring his unruly children into order — ^if he can; renew 
the jovial scenes of ancient prosperity; and long enjoy, on his 
paternal lands, a green, an honorable, and a merry old age. 



TEE PRIDE OF TEE VILLAGE. 257 



THE PEIDE OF THE VILLAGE. 

May no wolf howle : no screech-owle stir 

A wing about thy sepulchre ! 

No boysterous winds or stormes come hither, 

To starve or wither 
Thy soft sweet earth ! but, like a spring, 
Love keep it ever flourishing. 

— Herrick. 

In the course of an excursion through one of the remote 
counties of England, I had struck into one of those cross- 
roads that lead through the more secluded parts of the coun- 
try, and stopped one afternoon at a village, the situation of 
which was beautifully rural and retired. There was an air 
of primitive simplicity about its inhabitants, not to be found 
in the villages which lie on the great coach-roads. I deter- 
mined to pass the night there, and having taken an early 
dinner, strolled out to enjoy the neighboring scenery. 

My ramble, as is usually the case with travelers, soon led 
me to the church, which stood at a little distance from the 
village. Indeed, it was an object of some curiosity, its old 
tower being completely overrun with ivy, so that only here 
and there a jutting buttress, an angle of gray wall, or a fan- 
tastically carved ornament, peered through the verdant cover- 
ing. It was a lovely evening. The early part of the day had 
been dark and showery, but in the afternoon it had cleared 
up; and though sullen clouds still hung overhead, yet there 
was a broad tract of golden sky in the west, from which the 
setting sun gleamed through the dripping leaves, and lit up 
all nature into a melancholy smile. It seemed like the part- 
ing hour of a good Christian, smiling on the sins and sorrows 
of the world, and giving, in the serenity of his decline, an 
assurance that he will rise again in glory. 

I had seated myself on a half-sunken tombstone, and was 
musing, as one is apt to do at this sober-thoughted hour, on 
past scenes, and early friends — on those who were distant, 
and those who were dead — and indulging in that kind of 
melancholy fancying, which has in it something sweeter even 
than pleasure. Every now and then, the stroke of a bell from 
the neighboring tower fell on my ear; its tones were in unison 
with the scene, and instead of jarring, chimed in with my feel- 
ings; and it was some time before I recollected, that it must 
be tolHng the knell of some new tenant of the tomb. 



258 THE 8KETGH-B00K. 

Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the village 
green; it wound slowly along a lane; was lost^ and reappeared 
through the breaks of the hedges, until it passed the place 
where I was sitting. The pall was supported by young girls, 
dressed in white; and another, about the age of seventeen, 
walked before, bearing a chaplet of white flowers: a token 
that the deceased was a young and unmarried female. The 
corpse was followed by the parents. They were a venerable 
couple, of the better order of peasantry. The father seemed 
to repress his feelings; but his fixed eye, contracted brow, and 
deeply furrowed face, showed the struggle that was passing 
within. His wife hung on his arm, and wept aloud with the 
convulsive bursts of a mother's sorrow. 

I followed the funeral into the church. The bier was 
placed in the center aisle, and the chaplet of white flowers, 
with a pair of white gloves, were hung over the seat which the 
deceased had occupied. 

Everyone knows the soul-subduing pathos of the funeral 
service; for who is so fortunate as never to have followed 
someone he has loved to the tomb? but when performed over 
the remains of innocence and beauty, thus laid low in the 
bloom of existence — what can be more affecting? At that 
simple, but most solemn consignment of the body to the 
grave — " Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust! " the 
tears of the youthful companions of the deceased flowed unre- 
strained. The father still seemed to struggle with his feel- 
ings, and to comfort himself with the assurance, that the dead 
are blessed which die in the Lord: but the mother onl}'' 
thought of her child as a flower of the field, cut down 
and withered in the midst of its sweetness: she was like 
Eachel, " mourning over her children, and would not be 
comforted." _ 

On returning to the inn, I learnt the whole story of the 
deceased. It was a simple one, and such as has often been 
told. She had been the beauty and pride of the village. Her 
father had once been an opulent farmer, but was reduced in 
circumstances. This was an only child, and brought up en- 
tirely at home, in the simplicity of rural life. She had been 
the pupil of the village pastor, the favorite lamb of his little 
flock. The good man watched over her education with pater- 
nal care; it was limited, and suitable to the sphere in which 
she was to move; for he only sought to make her an ornament 
to her station in life^ not to raise her above it. The tender- 



TBE PBIDE OF THE VILLAGE. 260 

ness and indulgence of her parents, and the exemption from 
all ordinary occupations, had fostered a natural grace and 
delicacy of character that accorded with the fragile loveliness 
of her form. She appeared like some tender plant of the gar- 
den, blooming accidentally amid the hardier natives of the 
fields. 

The superiority of her charms was felt and acknowledged 
by her companions, but without envy; for it was surpassed 
by the unassuming gentleness and winning kindness of her 
manners. It might be truly said of her: 

" This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever 
Ran on the greensward : nothing she does or seems. 
But smacks of something greater than herself ; 
Too noble for this place." 

The village was one of those sequestered spots, which still 
retain some vestiges of old English customs. It had its rural 
festivals and holiday pastimes, and still kept up some faint 
observance of the once popular rites of May. These, indeed, 
had been promoted by its present pastor; who was a lover of 
old customs, and one of those simple Christians that think 
their mission fulfilled by promoting joy on earth and good 
will among mankind. Under his auspices the Maypole 
stood from year to year in the center of the village green; on 
May Day it was decorated with garlands and streamers; and a 
queen or lady of the May was appointed, as in former times, 
to preside at the sports, and distribute the prizes and rewards. 
The picturesque situation of the village, and the fancifulness 
of its rustic fetes, would often attract the notice of casual 
visitors. Among these, on one May Day, was a young officer, 
whose regiment had been recently quartered in the neighbor- 
hood. He was charmed with the native taste that pervaded 
this village pageant; but, above all, with the dawning loveli- 
ness of the queen of May. It was the village favorite, who 
was crowned with flowers, and blushing and smiling in all the 
beautiful confusion of girlish diffidence and delight. The 
artlessness of rural habits enabled him readily to make her 
acquaintance; he gradually won his way into her intimacy; 
and paid his court to her in that unthinking way in which 
young officers are too apt to trifle with rustic simplicity. 

There was nothing in his advances to startle or alarm. He 
never even talked of love; but there are modes of making it, 
more eloquent than language, and which convey it subtilelj 



260 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

and irresistibly to the heart. The beam of the eye, the tone 
of the voice, the thousand tendernesses which emanate from 
every word, and look, and action — these form the true elo- 
quence of love, and can always be felt and understood, but 
never described. Can we wonder that they should readily 
win a heart, young, guileless, and susceptible? As to her, 
she loved almost unconsciously; she scarcely inquired what 
was the growing passion that was absorbing every thought 
and feeling, or what were to be its consequences. She, in- 
deed, looked not to the future. When present, his looks and 
words occupied her whole attention; when absent, she 
thought but of what had passed at their recent interview. 
She would wander with him through the green lanes and 
rural scenes of the vicinity. He taught her to see new beau- 
ties in nature; he talked in the language of polite and culti- 
vated life, and breathed into her ear the witcheries of romance 
and poetry. 

Perhaps there could not have been a passion, between the 
sexes, more pure than this innocent girl's: The gallant figure 
of her youthful admirer, and the splendor of his military 
attire, might at first have charmed her eye; but it was not 
these that had captivated her heart. Her attachment had 
something in it of idolatry; she looked up to him as to a 
being of a superior order. She felt in his society the enthu- 
siasm of a mind naturally delicate and poetical, and now first 
awakened to a keen perception of the beautiful and grand. 
Of the sordid distinctions of rank and fortune, she thought 
nothing; it was the difference of intellect, of demeanor, of 
manners, from those of the rustic society to which she had 
been accustomed, that elevated him in her opinion, She 
would listen to him with charmed ear and downcast look of 
mute delight, and her cheek would mantle with enthusiasm; 
or if ever she ventured a shy glance of timid admiration, it 
was as quickly withdrawn, and she would sigh and blush at 
the idea of her comparative unworthiness. 
• Her lover was equally impassioned; but his passion was 
mingled with feelings of a coarser nature. He had begun the 
connection in levity; for he had often heard his brother 
officers boast of their village conquests, and thought some 
triumph of the kind necessary to his reputation as a man of 
spirit. But he was too full of youthful fervor. His heaji: 
had not yet been rendered sufficiently cold and selfish by a 
wandering and a dissipated life; it caught fire from the very 



THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE. 261 

flame it sought to kindle; and before he was aware of the 
nature of his situation, he became really in love. 

What was he to do? There were the old obstacles which 
so incessantly occur in these heedless attachments. His rank 
in life — the prejudices of titled connections — his dependence 
upon a proud and unyielding father — all forbade him to think 
of matrimony; — but when he looked down upon this inno- 
cent being, so tender and confiding, there was a purity in her 
manner, a blamelessness in her life, and a bewitching modesty 
in her looks, that awed down every licentious feeling. In 
vain did he try to fortify himself, by a thousand heartless 
examples of men of fashion, and to chill the glow of generous 
sentiment, with that cold derisive levity with which he had 
heard them talk of female virtue; whenever he came into her 
presence, she was still surrounded by that mysterious, but 
impassive charm of virgin purity, in whose hallowed sphere 
no guilty thought can live. 

The sudden arrival of orders for the regiment to repair to 
the Continent, completed the confusion of his mind. He re- 
mained for a short time in a state of the most painful irreso- 
lution; he hesitated to communicate the tidings, until the 
day for marching was at hand; when he gave her the intelli- 
gence in the course of an evening ramble. 

The idea of parting had never before occurred to her. It 
broke in at once upon her dream of felicity; she looked upon 
it as a sudden and insurmountable evil, and wept with the 
guileless simplicity of a child. He drew her to his bosom and 
kissed the tears from her soft cheek, nor did he meet with a 
repulse, for there are moments of mingled sorrow and tender- 
ness, which hallow the caresses of affection. He was natu- 
rally impetuous, and the sight of beauty apparently yielding 
in his arms, the confidence of his power over her, and the 
dread of losing her forever, all conspired to overwhelm his 
better feelings — he ventured to propose that she should 
leave her home, and be the companion of his fortunes. 

He was quite a novice in seduction, and blushed and fal- 
tered at his own baseness; but, so innocent of mind was his 
intended victim, that she was at first at a loss to comprehend 
his meaning; — and why she should leave her native village, 
and the humble roof of her parents. When at last the nature 
of his proposals flashed upon her pure mind, the effect was 
withering. She did not weep — she did not break forth into 
reproaches — she said not a word — ^but she shrunk back aghast 



262 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

as from a viper^ gave him a look of anguisli that pierced to 
his very soul, and clasping her hands in agony, fled, as if for 
refuge, to her father's cottage. 

The officer retired, confounded, humiliated, and repentant. 
It is unc'ertain what might have been the result of the con- 
flict of his feelings, had not his thoughts been diverted by the 
bustle of departure. liew scenes., new pleasures, and new 
companions, soon dissipated his self-reproach, and stifled his 
tenderness. Yet, amidst the stir of camps, the revelries of 
garrisons, the array of armies, and even the din of battles, his 
thoughts would sometimes steal back to the scenes of rural 
quiet and village simplicity — the white cottage — the foot- 
path along the silver brook and up the hawthorn hedge, and 
the little village maid loitering along it, leaning on his arm 
and listening to him with eyes beaming with unconscious 
affection. 

The shock which the poor girl had received, in the destruc- 
tion of all her ideal world, had indeed been cruel. Faintings 
and hysterics had at first shaken her tender frame, and were 
succeeded by a settled and pining melancholy. She had be-' 
held from her window the march of the departing troops. 
She had seen her faithless lover borne off, as if in triumph, 
amidst the sound of drum and trumpet, and the pomp of 
arms. She strained a last aching gaze after him, as the morn- 
ing sun glittered about his figure, and his plume waved in the 
breeze; he passed away like a bright vision from her sight, 
and left her all in darkness. 

It would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her after- 
story. It was like other tales of love, melancholy. She 
avoided society, and wandered out alone in the walks she had 
most frequented with her lover. She sought, like the 
stricken deer, to weep in silence and loneliness, and brood 
over the barbed sorrow that rankled in her soul. Sometimes 
she would be seen late of an evening sitting in the porch of 
the village church; and the milkmaids, returning from the 
fields, would now and then overhear her, singing some plain- 
tive ditty in the hawthorn walk. She became fervent in her 
devotions at church; and as the old people saw her approach, 
so wasted away, yet with a hectic bloom, and that hallowed 
air which melancholy diffuses round the form, they would 
make way for her, as for something spiritual, and, looking 
after her, would shake their heads in gloomy foreboding. 

She felt a conviction that she was hastening to the tomb. 



TEE PBIDE OF THE VILLAGE. 263 

but looked forward to it as a place of rest. The silver cord 
that had bound her to existence was loosed, and there seemed 
to be no more pleasure under the sun. If ever her gentle 
"bosom had entertained resentment against her lover, it was 
extinguished. She was incapable of angry passions, and in a 
moment of saddened tenderness she penned him a farewell 
letter. It was couched in the simplest language, but touch- 
ing from its very simplicity. She told him that she was 
dying, and did not conceal from him that his conduct was the 
cause. She even depicted the sufferings which she had ex- 
perienced; but concluded with saying, that she could not die 
in peace, until she had sent him her forgiveness and her 
blessing. 

By degrees her strength declined, and she could no longer 
leave the cottage. She could only totter to the window, 
where, propped up in her chair, it was her enjoyment to sit 
all day and look out upon the landscape. Still she uttered 
no complaint, nor imparted to anyone the malady that was 
preying on her heart. She never even mentioned her lover's 
name; but would lay her head on her mother's bosom and 
weep in silence. Her poor parents hung, in mute anxiety, 
over this fading blossom of their hopes, still flattering them- 
selves that it might again revive to freshness, and that the 
bright unearthly bloom which sometimes flushed her cheek, 
might be the promise of returning health. 

In this way she was seated between them one Sunday after- 
noon; her hands were clasped in theirs, the lattice was thrown 
open, and the soft air that stole in, brought with it the fra- 
grance of the clustering honeysuckle, which her own hands 
had trained round the window. 

Her father had just been reading a chapter in the Bible; it 
spoke of the vanity of worldly things, and the joys of heaven; 
it seemed to have diffused comfort and serenity through her 
bosom. Her eye was fixed on the distant village church — the 
bell had tolled for the evening service — the last villager was 
lagging into the porch — and everything had sunk into that 
hallowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest. Her parents 
were gazing on her with yearning hearts. Sickness and sor- 
row, which pass so roughly ever some faces, had given to hers 
the expression of a seraph's. A tear trembled in her soft 
blue eye. Was she thinking of her faithless lover? — or were 
her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into 
whose bosom she might soon be gathered? 



264 TEE SKETGH-BOOK. 

Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard — a horseman gal- 
loped to the cottage — he dismounted before the window — the 
poor girl gave a faint exclamation, and sunk back in her 
chair: — it was her repentant lover! He rushed into the 
house, and flew to clasp her to his bosom; but her wasted 
form — her deathlike countenance: — so wan, yet so lovely in its 
desolation — smote him to the soul, and he threw himself in 
an agony at her feet. She was too faint to rise — she at- 
tempted to extend her trembling hand — ^her lips moved as if 
she spoke, but no word was articulated — she looked down 
upon him with a smile of unutterable tenderness, and closed 
her eyes forever! 

Such are the particulars which I gathered of this village 
story. They are but scanty, and I am conscious have but 
little novelty to recommend them. In the present rage also 
for strange incident and high-seasoned narrative, they may 
appear trite and insignificant, but they interested me strongly 
at the time; and, taken in connection with the affecting cere- 
mony which I had just witnessed, left a deeper impression on 
my mind than many circumstances of a more striking nature. 
I have passed through the place since, and visited the church 
again from a better motive than mere curiosity. It was a 
wintry evening; the trees were Sitripped of their foliage; tjhe 
churchyard looked naked and mournful, and the wind rustled 
coldly through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had been 
planted about the grave of the village favorite, and osiers were 
bent over it to keep the turf uninjured. The church door 
was open, and I stepped in. There hung the chaplet of 
flowers and the gloves, as on the day of the funeral: the 
flowers were withered, it is true, but care seemed to have been 
taken that no dust should soil their whiteness. I have seen 
many monuments, where art has exhausted its powers to 
awaken the sympathy of the spectator; but I have met with 
none that spoke more touchingly to my heart, than this 
simple, but delicate memento of departed innocence. 



THE ANGLES. 265 



THE ANGLEE. 

This day dame Kature seem'd in love, 

Tlie lusty sap began to move, 

Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines, 

And birds had drawn their valentines. 

The jealous trout that lovs^ did lie, 

Rose at a well dissembled fly. 

There stood my friend, with patient skill, 

Attending of his trembling quill. 

— Sir H. Wotton. 

It is said that many an unlucky urchin is induced to run 
away from his family, and betake himself to a seafaring life, 
from reading the history of Eobinson Crusoe; and I suspect 
that, in like manner, many of those worthy gentlemen, who 
are given to haunt the sides of pastoral streams with angle 
rods in hand, may trace the origin of their passion to the 
seductive pages of honest Isaac Walton. I recollect studying 
his " Complete Angler '' several years since, in company with 
a knot of friends in America, and, moreover, that we were 
all completely bitten with the angling mania. It was early 
in the year; but as soon as the weather was auspicious, and 
that the spring began to melt into the verge of summer, we 
took rod in hand, and sallied into the country, as stark mad 
as was ever Don Quixote from reading books of chivalry. 

One of our party had equaled the Don in the fullness of his 
equipments; being attired cap-a-pie for the enterprise. He 
wore a broad-skirted fustian coat, perplexed with half a hun- 
dred pockets; a pair of stout shoes, and leathern gaiters; a 
basket slung on one side for fis-h; a patent rod; a landing net, 
and a score of other inconveniences only to be found in the 
true angler's armory. Thus harnessed for the field, he was 
as great a matter of stare and wonderment among the country 
folk, who had never seen a regular angler, as was the steel- 
clad hero of La Mancha among the goatherds of the Sierra 
Morena. 

Our first essay was along a mountain brook, among the 
highlands of the Hudson — a most unfortunate place for the 
execution of those piscatory tactics which had been invented 
along the velvet margins of quiet English rivulets. It was 
one of those wild streams that lavish, among our romantic 
solitudes, unheeded beauties, enough to fill the sketchbook 
of a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap 



266 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

down rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which, the 
trees threw their broad balancing sprays; and long nameless 
weeds hung in fringes from the impending banks, dripping 
with diamond drops. Sometimes it would brawl and fret 
along a ravine in the matted shade of a forest, filling it with 
mnrmnrs; and after this termagant career, wonld steal forth 
into open day with the most placid demure face imaginable; 
as I have seen some pestilent shrew of a housewife, after fill- 
ing her home with uproar and ill-humor, come dimpling out 
of doors, swimming, and courtesying, and smiUng upon all 
the world. 

How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide, at such 
times, through some bosom of green meadow land, among the 
mountains; where the quiet was only interrupted by the oc- 
casional tinkling of a bell from the lazy cattle among the 
clover, or the sound of a woodcutter's ax from the neigh- 
boring forest! 

For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of sport 
that required either patience or adroitness, and had not 
angled above half an hour, before I had completely " satisfied 
the sentiment," and convinced myself of the truth of Isaac 
Walton's opinion, that angling is something like poetry — a 
man must be bom to it. I hooked myself instead of the fish; 
tangled my hne in every tree; lost my bait; broke my rod; 
until I gave up the attempt in despair, and passed the day 
under the trees, reading old Isaac; satisfied that it was his 
fascinating vein of honest simplicity and rural feeling that 
had bewitched me, and not the passion for angling. My 
companions, however, were more persevering in their de- 
lusion. I have them at this moment before my eyes, stealing 
along the border of the brook, where it lay open to the day, 
or was merely fringed by shrubs and bushes. I see the 
bittern rising with hollow scream, as they break in upon his 
rarely invaded haunt; the kingfisher watching them suspi- 
ciously from his dry tree that overhangs the deep black mill- 
pond, in the gorge of the hills; the tortoise letting himself 
slip sideways from off the stone or log on which he is sun- 
ning himself; and the panic-struck frog plumping in head- 
long as they approach, and spreading an alarm throughout 
the watery world around. 

I recollect, also, that, after toiling and watching and creep- 
ing about the greater part of a day, with scarcely any suc- 
cess, in spite of all our admirable apparatus, a lubberly coul,- 



THE ANGLER. 267 

try Tircliin came down from the hills, with a rod made from 
a branch of a tree; a few yards of twine; and, as Heaven shall 
help me! I believe a crooked pin for a hook, baited with a vile 
earthworm — and in half an hour caught more fish than we 
had nibbles throughout the day. 

But above all, I recollect the "good, honest, wholesome, 
hungry " repast, which we made under a beech tree just by 
a spring of pure sweet water, that stole out of the side of a 
hill; and how, when it was over, one of the party read old 
Izaak Walton's scene with the milkmaid, while I lay on the 
grass and built castles in a bright pile of clouds, until I fell 
asleep. All this may appear like mere egotism; yet I cannot 
refrain from uttering these recollections which are passing 
like a strain of music over my mind, and have been called up 
by an agreeable scene which I witnessed not long since. 

In a morning's stroll along the banks of the Alum, a 
beautiful little stream which flows down from the Welsh hills 
and throws itself into the Dee, my attention was attracted to a 
group seated on the margin. On approaching, I found it to 
consist of a veteran angler and two rustic disciples. The 
former was an old fellow with a wooden leg, with clothes 
very much, but very carefully patched, betokening poverty, 
honestly come by, and decently maintained. His face bore 
the marks of former storms, but present fair weather; its fur- 
rows had been worn into a habitual smile; his iron-gray locks 
hung about his ears, and he had altogether the good-humored 
air of a constitutional philosopher, who is disposed to take 
the world as it went. One of his companions was a ragged 
wight, with the skulking look of an arrant poacher, and I'll 
warrant could find his way to any gentleman's fish pond in 
the neighborhood in the darkest night. The other was a tall, 
awkward, country lad, with a lounging gait, and apparently 
somewhat of a rustic beau. The old man was busied examin- 
ing the maw of a trout which he had just killed, to dis- 
cover by its contents what insects were seasonable for bait; 
and was lecturing on the subject . to his companions, who 
appeared to Hsten with an infinite deference. I have a kind 
feeling toward all " brothers of the angle," ever since I read 
Izaak Walton. They are men, he afiirms, of a " mild, sweet, 
and peaceable spirit"; and my esteem for them has been 
increased since I met with an old " Tretyse of fishing with 
the Angle," in which are set forth many of the maxims of 
their inoffensive fraternity. " Take goode hede/' sayth thi§ 



268 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

honest little tretyse, ^^ that in going about your disportes ye 
open no man's gates but that ye shet them again. Also ye 
shall not use this foresaid crafti disport for no covetousness 
to the increasing and sparing of your money only, but princi- 
pally for your solace and to cause the helth of your body and 
specyally of your soule." * 

I thought that I could perceive in the veteran angler before 
me an exemplification of what I had read; and there was a 
cheerful contentedness in his looks, that quite drew me 
toward him. I could not but remark the gallant manner in 
which he stumped from one part of the brook to another; 
waving his rod in the air, to keep the line from dragging on 
the ground, or catching among the bushes; and the adroitness 
with which he would throw his fly to any particular place; 
sometimes skimming it lightly along a little rapid; some- 
times casting it into one of those dark holes made by a twisted 
root or overhanging bank, in which the large trout are apt 
to lurk. In the meanwhile, he was giving instructions to his 
two disciples; showing them the manner in which they should 
handle their rods, fix their flies, and play them along the sur- 
face of the stream. The scene brought to my mind the in- 
structions of the sage Piscator to his scholar. The country 
around was of that pastoral kind which Walton is fond of 
describing. It was a part of the great plain of Cheshire, close 
by the beautiful vale of Gessford, and just where the in- 
ferior Welsh hills begin to swell up from among fresh-smell- 
ing meadows. The day, too, like that recorded in his work, 
was mild and sunshiny; with now and then a soft dropping 
shower, that sowed the whole earth with diamonds. 

I soon fell into conversation with the old angler, and was 
so much entertained, that, under pretext of receiving in- 
structions in his art, I kept company with him almost the 
whole day; wandering along the banks of the stream, and 
listening to his talk. He was very communicative, having 
all the easy garrulity of cheerful old age; and I fancy was a 

* From this same treatise, it would appear that angling is a more in- 
dustrious and devout employment than it is generally considered. ' * For 
when ye purpose to go on your disportes in fishynge, ye will not desyre 
greatlye many persons with you, which might let you of your game. 
And that ye may serve God devoutly in sayinge effectually your cus- 
tomable prayers. And thus doying, ye shall eschew and also avoyde 
many vices, as ydleness, which is a principall cause to induce man tp 
many other vices, as it is right well known," 



THE ANQLEB. 269 

little flattered by having an opportunity of displaying Ms 
piscatory lore; for who does not like now and then to play 
the sage? 

He had been much of a rambler in his day; and had passed 
some years of his youth in America, particularly in Savannah, 
where he had entered into trade, and had been ruined by the 
indiscretion of a partner. He had afterward experienced 
many ups and downs in life, until he got into the navy, where 
his leg was carried away by a cannon ball, at the battle of 
Camperdown. This was the only stroke of real good fortune 
he had ever experienced, for it got him a pension, which, to- 
gether with some small paternal property, brought him in 
a revenue of nearly forty pounds. On this he retired to his 
native village, where he lived quietly and independently, and 
devoted the remainder of his life to the " noble art of 
angling." 

I found that he had read Izaak Walton attentively, and he 
seemed to have imbibed all his simple frankness and prevalent 
good homor. Though he had been sorely buffeted about the 
world, he was satisfied that the world, in itself, was good and 
beautiful. Though he had been as roughly used in different 
countries as a poor sheep that is fleeced by every hedge and 
thicket, yet he spoke of every nation with candor and kind- 
ness, appearing to look only on the good side of things: and 
above all, he was almost the only man I had ever met with, 
who had been an unfortunate adventurer in America, and had 
honesty and magnanimity enough to take the fault to his 
own door, and not to curse the country. 

The lad that was receiving his instructions I learnt was the 
son and heir-apparent of a fat old widow, who kept the village 
inn, and of course a youth of some expectation, and much 
courted by the idle, gentleman-like personages of the place. 
In taking him under his care, therefore, the old man had 
probably an eye to a privileged corner in the taproom, and 
an occasional cup of cheerful ale free of expense. 

There is certainly something in angling, if we could for- 
get, which anglers are apt to do, the cruelties and tortures 
inflicted on worms and insects, that tends to produce a gentle- 
ness of spirit, and a pure serenity of mind. As the English 
are methodical even in their recreations, and are the most 
scientific sportsmen, it has been reduced among them to a 
perfect rule and system. Indeed, it is an amusement 
peculiarly adapted to the mild and cultivated scenery of Eng- 



270 THE 8KETCB-B00K. 

land, where every rougliness has been softened away from the 
landscape. It is delightful to saunter along those limpid 
streams which wander, like veins of silver, through the bosom 
of this beautiful country; leading one through a diversity of 
small home scenery; sometimes winding through ornamented 
grounds; sometimes brimming along through rich pasturage, 
where the fresh green is mingled with sweet-smelling flowers, 
sometimes venturing in sight of villages and hamlets; and 
then running capriciously away into shady retirements. The 
sweetness and serenity of nature, and the quiet watchfulness 
of the sport gradually brings on pleasant fits of musing; which 
are now and 'then agreeably interrupted by the song of a 
bird; the distant whistle of the peasant; or perhaps the vagary 
of some fish, leaping out of the still water, and skimming 
transiently about its glassy surface. " When I would beget 
content," says Izaak Walton, " and increase confidence in the 
power and wisdom and providence of Almighty God, I will 
walk the meadows by some gliding stream, and there con- 
template the lilies that take no care, and those very many 
other little living creatures that are not only created, but fed 
(man knows not how), by the goodness of the God of nature, 
and therefore trust in him." 

I cannot forbear to give another quotation from one of 
those ancient champions of angling, which breathes the same 
innocent and happy spirit: 

" Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink 

Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place : 
Where I may see my quill, or cork down sink, 

With eager bite of Pike, or Bleak, or Dace. 
And on the world and my Creator think : 

While some men strive ill-gotten goods t' embrace ; 
And others spend their time in base excess 

Of wine, or worse, in war or wantonness. 

•' Let them that will, these pastimes still pursue 
And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill. 

So I the fields and meadows green may view, 
And daily by fresh rivers walk at will 

Among the daisies and the violets blue, 
Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil." * 

On parting with the old angler, I inquired after his place 
of abode, and happening to be in the neighborhood of the 
village a few evenings afterward, I had the curiosity to seek 

*J. Davors. 



TEE ANGLER. S71 

him out. I found him living in a small cottage, contain- 
ing only one room, but a perfect curiosity in its method and 
arrangement. It was on the skirts of the village, on a green 
bank, a little back from the road, with a small garden in 
front, stocked with kitchen herbs, and adorned with a few 
flowers. The whole front of the cottage was overrun with a 
honeysuckle. On the top was a ship for a weathercock. 
The interior was fitted up in a truly nautical style, his ideas 
of comfort and convenience having been acquired on the 
berth deck of a man-of-war. A hammock was slung from 
■fche ceiling, which in the daytime was lashed up so as to take 
but little room. From the center of the chamber hung a 
model of a ship, of his own workmanship. Two or three 
chairs, a table, and a large sea chest, formed the principal 
movables. About the wall were stuck up naval ballads, 
such as " Admiral Hosier's Ghost,'' " All in the Downs," and 
" Tom Bowling," intermingled with pictures of sea fights, 
among which the battle of Camperdown held a distinguished 
place. The mantelpiece was decorated with sea shells; over 
which hung a quadrant, flanked by two woodcuts of most 
bitter-looking naval commanders. His implements for an- 
gling were carefully disposed on nails and hooks about the 
room. On a shelf was arranged his library, containing a 
work on angling, much worn; a Bible covered with canvas; 
an odd volume or two of voyages; a nautical almanac; and a 
book of songs. 

His family consisted of a large black cat with one eye, and 
a parrot which he had caught and tamed, and educated him- 
self, in the course of one of his voyages; and which uttered 
a variety of sea phrases, with the hoarse rattling tone of a 
veteran boatswain. The establishment reminded me of that 
of the renowned Robinson Crusoe; it was kept in neat order, 
everything being " stowed away " with the regularity of a ship 
of war; and he informed me that he " scoured the deck every 
morning, and swept it between meals." 

I found him seated on a bench before the door, smoking 
his pipe in the soft evening sunshine. His cat was purring 
soberly on the threshold, and his parrot describing some 
strange evolutions in an iron ring, that swung in the center 
of his cage. He had been anghng all day, and gave me a 
history of his sport with as much minuteness as a general 
would talk over a campaign; being particularly animated in 
relating the manner in which he had taken a large trout^ 



212 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

which had completely tasked all his skill and wariness, and 
which he had sent as a trophy to mine hostess of the inn. 

How comforting it is to see a cheerful and contented old 
age; and to hehold a poor fellow, like this, after heing temp- 
est-tost through life, safely moored in a snug and quiet har- 
hor in the evening of his days! His happiness, however, 
sprung from within himself, and was independent of ex- 
ternal circumstances; for he had that inexhaustible good 
nature, which is the most precious gift of Heaven; spreading 
itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping 
the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather. 

On inquiring further about him, I learnt that he was a 
universal favorite in the village, and the oracle of the tap- 
room; where he delighted the rustics with his songs, and, 
like Sinbad, astonished them with his stories of strange lands, 
and shipwrecks, and sea fights. He was much noticed too 
by gentlemen sportsmen of the neighborhood; had taught 
several of them the art of angling; and was a privileged visitor 
to their kitchens. The whole tenor of his life was quiet and 
inoffensive, being principally passed about the neighboring 
streams, when the weather and season were favorable; and at 
other times he employed himself at home, preparing his fish- 
ing tackle for the next campaign, or manufacturing rods, 
nets, and flies, for his patrons and pupils among the gentry. 

He was a regular attendant at church on Sundays, though 
he generally fell asleep during the sermon. He had made it 
his particular request that when he died he should be buried 
in a green spot, which he could see from his seat in church, 
and which he had marked out ever since he was a boy, and 
had thought of when far from home on the raging sea, in 
danger of being food for the fishes — ^it was the spot where 
his father and mother had been buried. 

I have done, for I fear that my reader is growing weary; 
but I could not refrain from drawing the picture of this 
worthy " brother of the angle ^'; who has made me more than 
ever in love with the theory, though I fear I shall never be 
adroit in the practice of his art; and I will conclude this 
rambling sketch in the words of honest Izaak Walton, by 
craving the blessing of St. Peter's Master upon my reader, 
" and upon all that are true lovers of virtue; and dare trust 
in his providence; and be quiet; and go a angling.'^ 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 273 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 

(found among the papeks of the late diedkich 
knickerbockek.) 

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, 
Of dreams that wave before the half -shut eye ; 
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, 
For ever flushing round a summer sky. 

— Castle of Indolence. 

In" the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent 
the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of 
the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the 
Tappaan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail, 
and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they 
crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which 
by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally 
and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name 
was given it, we are told, in former days, by the good house- 
wives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity 
of their husbands to hnger about the village tavern on market 
days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but 
merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authen- 
tic. Not far from this village, perhaps about three miles, 
there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, 
which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A 
small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to 
lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail, or 
tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever 
breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity. 

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squir- 
rel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades 
one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noon time 
when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the 
roar of my own gun, as it broke the sabbath stillness around, 
and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If 
ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the 
world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the rem- 
nant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than 
this little valley. 

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar char- 
acter of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the origi- 
nal Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known 



/ 



274 TME SKETVE-BOOK. 

by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called 
the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring coun- 
try. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the 
land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that 
the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the 
early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, 
the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there 
before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hud- 
son. Certain it is, that the place still continues under the 
sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the 
minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual 
reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; 
are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange 
sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole 
neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and 
twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener 
across the valley than in any other part of the country, and 
the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the 
favorite scene of her gambols. 

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted 
region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers 
of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without 
a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian 
trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon ball, 
in some nameless battle during the Eevolutionary War, and 
who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along 
in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His 
haunts are not conSned to the valley, but extend at times to 
the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church 
that is at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most au- 
thentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in col- 
lecting and collating the floating facts concerning this 
specter, allege that the body of the trooper having been 
buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene 
of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing 
speed with which he sometimes passes along the hollow, like 
a midnight blast, is owing !o his being belated, and in a hurry 
to get back to the churchyard before daybreak. 

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, 
which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that 
region of shadows; and the specter is known at all the coun- 
try firesides, by the name of The Headless Horseman of 
Sleepy Hollow. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 275 

It is remarkable, that the visionary propensity I have men- 
tioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, 
but it is unconsciously imbibed by everyone who resides there 
for a time. However wideawake they may have been before 
they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, 
to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to gr^w 
imaginative — to dream dreams, and see apparitions. 

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it 
is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there 
embosomed in the great State of New York, that population, 
manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of 
migration and improvement, which is making such incessant 
changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them 
unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water, 
which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and 
bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their 
mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. 
Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy 
shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not 
still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in 
its sheltered bosom. 

In this byplace of nature there abode, in a remote period of 
American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a 
worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, 
or, as he expressed it, " tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the 
purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a 
native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with 
pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth 
yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country school- 
masters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his 
person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow 
shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out 
of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his 
whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was 
small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, 
and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock 
perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind 
blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a 
windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, 
one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine de- 
scending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a 
cornfield. 

His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, 



2'?6 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and 
pa.rtly patched with leaves of copybooks. It was most in- 
geniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the 
handle of the door, and stakes set against the window shut- 
ters; so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he 
would find some embarrassment in getting out: — an idea most 
probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Honten, from 
the mystery of an eelpot. The schoolhouse stood in a rather 
lonely but pleasant situation, Just at the foot of a woody hill, 
with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch tree 
growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of 
his pupils^ voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard 
of a drowsy summer's day, like the hum of a beehive; inter- 
rupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, 
in the tone of menace or command; or, peradventure, by the 
appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer 
along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a 
conscientious man, that ever bore in mind the golden maxim, 
" spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's 
scholars certainly were not spoiled. 

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of 
those cruel potentates of the school, who' joy in the smart of 
their subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with 
discrimination rather than severity; taking the burthen off the 
backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your 
mere puny stripling that winced at the least flourish of the 
rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice 
were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little, 
tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who 
sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the 
birch. All this he called " ^oing his duty by their parents"; 
and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by 
the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that " he 
would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he 
had to live." 

When school hours were over, he was even the companion 
and playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons 
would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened 
to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted 
for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it behoved him to 
keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising 
from his school was small, and would have been scarcely suffi- 
cient to furnish him with daily bread;, for he was a hug6 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 277 

feeder, and though lank, had the dilating powers of an ana- 
conda; but to help out his maintenance, he was, according to 
country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the 
houses of the farmers, whose children he instructed. With 
these he lived successively, a week at a time, thus going the 
rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied 
up in a cotton handkerchief. 

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his 
rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling 
a grievous burthen, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had 
various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. 
He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of 
their farms; helped to make hay; mended the fences; took 
the horses to water; drove the cows from pasture; and cut 
wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant 
dignity and absolute sway, with which he lorded it in his 
little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and 
ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers, by 
petting the children, particularly the youngest; and like the 
lion bold, which whilome so magnanimously the lamb did 
hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle 
with his foot for whole hours together. 

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing- 
master of the neighborhood, and picked up many bright 
shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was 
a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays, to take his 
station in front of the church gallery, with a band of chosen 
singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away 
the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded 
far above all the rest of the congregation, and there are 
peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which 
may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side 
of the mill pond, on a still Sunday morning, which are said 
to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. 
Thus, by divers little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which 
is commonly denominated " by hook and by crook," the 
worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, 
by all who understood nothing of the labor of head work, to 
have a wonderful easy life of it. 

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance 
in the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered 
a kind of idle gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior 
taste and accomplishments to the rough couatrj, swains^ and, 



2V8 THE SKJtlTCH-BOOK. 

indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appear- 
ance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea- 
table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary 
dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventnre, the parade of a 
silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly 
happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he 
would figure among them in the churchyard, between services 
on Sundays! gathering grapes for them from the wild vines 
that overrun the surrounding trees; reciting for their amuse- 
ment all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering with 
a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill 
pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheep- 
ishly back, envying his superior elegance and address. 

From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of traveling 
gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house 
to house; so that his appearance was always greeted with 
satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a 
man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite 
through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's " His- 
tory of N'ew England Witchcraft,'' in which, by the way, he 
most firmly and potently believed. 

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and 
simple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his 
powers of digesting it, were equally extraordinary; and both 
had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. 
No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. 
It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the 
afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover, border- 
ing the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse, and 
there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the gathering 
dusk of evening made the printed page a mere mist before his 
eyes. Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream 
and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to 
be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, 
fluttered his excited imagination; the moan of the whip-poor- 
will * from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree toad, that 
harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl; or 
the sudden rustling in the thicket, of birds frightened from 
their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in 
the darkest places, now and then startled him, as one of un- 

* The whip-poor-will is a bird which is only heard at night. It re- 
ceives its name frpm its nptes which is thought to resemble those words, 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 279 

common brightness would stream across liis path; and if, by 
chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blun- 
dering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give 
up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's 
token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown 
thought, or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; — 
and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their 
doors of an evening, were often filled with awe, at hearing his 
nasal melody, " in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating 
from the distant hill, or along the dusky road. 

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long 
winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning 
by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and sputtering along 
the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts, and 
goblins, and haunted fields and haunted brooks, and haunted 
bridges and haunted houses, and particularly of the Headless 
Horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they some- 
times called him. He would delight them equally by his 
anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and porten- 
tous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the 
earlier times of Connecticut; and would frighten them woe- 
fully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars, and 
with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn 
round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy! 

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cud- 
dling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a 
ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and where, of 
course, no specter dared to show its face, it was dearly pur- 
chased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homeward. 
What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the 
dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful 
look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across 
the waste fields from some distant window! How often wa.s 
he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which like a 
sheeted specter beset his very path! How often did he shrink 
with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty 
crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, 
lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close be- 
hind him! — and how often was he thrown into complete dis- 
may by some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the 
idea that it was the G-alloping Hessian on one of his nightly 
scourings! 

All these^ however^ were mere terrors oi the night, phan- 



280 THE SKETCE-BOOK. 

toms of the mind, that walk in darkness: and though he had 
seen many specters in his time, and been more than once beset 
by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet 
daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have 
passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his 
works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes 
more perplexity to mortal man, than ghosts, goblins, and the 
whole race of witches put together; and that was — a woman. 

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening 
in each week, to receive his instructions in psalmody, was 
Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a sub- 
stantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh 
eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy- 
cheeked as one of her father's peaches, amd universally famed, 
not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She 
"was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even 
in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern 
fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the 
ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great-great-grand- 
mother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting 
stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short 
petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the coun- 
try round. 

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex; 
and it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel 
soon found favor in his eyes, more especially after he had 
visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel 
was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted 
farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his 
thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within 
these, everything was snug, happy, and well conditioned. He 
was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued 
himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in 
which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of 
the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks, in 
which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great 
elm tree spread its broad branches over it; at the foot of 
which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in 
a little well, formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away 
through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that babbled along 
among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse 
was a vast barn, that might have served for a church; every 
window and crevice of which seemed bw&ting forth with th© 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 281 

treasiires of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within 
it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed 
twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with 
one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their 
heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and 
others, swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, 
were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy 
porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their 
pens, from whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of suck- 
ing pigs, as if to snulf the air. A stately squadron of snowy 
geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole 
fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through 
the farmyard, and guinea fowls fretting about it like ill- 
tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. 
Before the bam door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern 
of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman; clapping his 
burnished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his 
heart — sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then 
generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and chil- 
dren to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered. 

The pedagogue's mouth watered, as he looked upon this 
sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devour- 
ing mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting pig run- 
ning about, with a pudding in its belly, and an apple in its 
mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable 
pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were 
swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in 
dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency 
of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future 
sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey, 
but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its 
wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and 
even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in 
a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter 
which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living. 

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled 
his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields 
of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the 
orchards burthened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded 
the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the 
damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagina- 
tion expanded with the idea, how they might be readily 
turned into cash^ and the money invested in imm^B^^ tracts 



282 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

of wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his 
busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to him 
the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, 
mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household 
trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath; and he 
beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her 
heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee — or the Lord 
knows where! 

When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was 
complete. It was one of those spacious farmhouses, with 
high-ridged, but lowly sloping roofs, built in the style handed 
down from the first Dutch settlers. The low projecting eaves 
forming a piazza along the front, capable of being closed up 
in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various 
utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighbor- 
ing river. Benches were built along the sides for summer 
use; and a great spinning wiieel at one end, and a churn at 
the other, showed the various uses to which this important 
porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering 
Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the 
mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here rows of 
resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. 
In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun; in 
another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey, just from the loom; ears 
of Indian com, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung 
in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red 
peppers; and a door left ajar, gave him a peep into the best 
parlor, where the claw-footed chairs, and dark mahogany 
tables, shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying 
shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus 
tops; mock oranges and conch shells decorated the mantel- 
piece; strings of various colored birds' eggs were suspended 
above it; a great ostrich Qgg was hung from the center of the 
room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed 
immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china. 

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions 
of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only 
study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter 
of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real 
difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of 
yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery 
dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, tp con- 
tend with; and had to make his way merely through gates of 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 283 

iron and brasS;, and walls of adamant to the castle-keep where 
the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as 
easily as a man would carve his way to the center of a Christ- 
mas piC;, and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of 
course. Ichabod, on the contrary^ had to win his way to the 
heart of a country coquette beset with a labyrinth of whims 
and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties 
and impediments, and he had to encounter a host of fearful 
adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic ad- 
mirers, who beset every portal to her heart; keeping a watch- 
ful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the 
common cause against any new competitor. 

Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, 
roystering blade of the name of Abraham, or according to 
the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van Brunt, the hero of the 
country round, which rung with his feats of strength and har- 
dihood. He was broad-shouldered and double- jointed, with 
short curly black hair, and a blufl but not unpleasant coun- 
tenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From 
his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had re- 
ceived the nickname of Bkom Bones, by which he was univer- 
sally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill 
in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. 
He was foremost at all races and cock-fights, and with the 
ascendancy which bodily strength always acquires in rustic 
life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one 
side, and giving his decision with an air and tone that ad- 
mitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for 
either a fight or a frolic; had more mischief than ill-will in 
his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness there 
was a strong dash of waggish good-humor at bottom. He had 
three or four boon companions of his own stamp, who re- 
garded him as their model, and at the head of whom he 
scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merri- 
ment for miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished 
by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail; and 
when the folks at a country gathering descried this well- 
known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of 
hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his 
crew would be heard dashing along past the farmhouses at 
midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cos- 
sacks, and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would 
listen for a raoinent till the hurry-scurry had clattered by.. 



284 TEE SKETCH-BOOK. 

and then exclaim, '^'^Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his 
gang! " The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of 
awe, admiration, and good will; and when any madcap prank 
or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their 
heads, and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it. 

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the 
blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, 
and though his amorous topngs were something like the 
gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it was whis- 
pered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Cer- 
tain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to re- 
tire, who felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours; 
insomuch, that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's 
paling, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was 
courting, or, as it is termed, " sparking," within, all other 
suitors passed by in despair, and carried the war into other 
quarters. 

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane 
had to contend, and considering all things, a stouter man than 
he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man 
would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of 
pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and 
spirit like a supple-jack — yielding, but tough; though he 
bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the 
slightest pressure, yet the moment it was away — ^jerk! — he was 
as erect, and carried his head as high as ever. 

To have taken the field openly against his rival, would have 
been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his 
amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, 
therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuat- 
ing manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, 
he made frequent visits at the farmhouse; not that he had 
anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of 
parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of 
lovers. Bait Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved 
his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable 
man, and an excellent father, let her have her way in every- 
thing. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to at- 
tend to her housekeeping and manage the poultry; for, as she 
sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must 
be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus, 
while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her 
spinning wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Bait would 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 285 

sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the 
achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a 
sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on 
the pinnacle of the barn. In the meantime, Ichahod would 
carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring 
under the great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that 
hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence. 

I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and 
won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and 
admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or 
door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and 
may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great 
triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof 
of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for a man 
must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He 
that wins a thousand common hearts, is therefore entitled to 
some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the 
heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was 
not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the 
moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of 
the former evidently declined: his horse was no longer seen 
tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud 
gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy 
Hollow. 

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, 
would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and settled 
their pretensions to the lady, according to the mode of those 
most concise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore 
■^-by single combat; but Ichabod was too conscious of the 
superior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him; 
he had overheard the boast of Bones, that he would " double 
the schoolmaster up, and put him on a shelf"; and he was 
too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something 
extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left 
Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic 
waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical 
jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whim- 
sical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders. 
They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his 
singing school, by stopping up the chimney; broke into the 
schoolhouse at night, in spite of his formidable fastenings of 
withe and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy; 
so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches 



^66 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

in the country held their meetings there. But what was still 
more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him 
into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel 
dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner^ 
and introduced as a rival of Ichahod's, to instruct her in 
psalmody. 

In this way, matters went on for some time, without pro- 
ducing any material effect on the relative situations of the 
contending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichahod, 
in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence 
he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. 
In his hand he swayed a ferule, that scepter of despotic power; 
the birch of justice reposed on three nails, behind the throne, 
a constant terror to evil doers; while on the desk before him 
might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited 
weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins; such as 
half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and 
whole legions of rampant little paper game-cocks. Appar- 
ently there had been some appalling act of justice recently in- 
flicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their books, 
or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the 
master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout 
the schoolroom. It was suddenly interrupted by the appear- 
ance of a negro in tow-cloth jacket and trousers, a round- 
crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and 
mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, 
which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came 
clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod 
to attend a merrymaking, or " quilting frolic," to be held 
that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's; and having delivered 
his message with that air of importance, and effort at fine 
language, which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies 
of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scamper- 
ing away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of 
his mission. 

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school- 
room. The scholars were hurried through their lessons, with- 
out stopping at trifles; those who were nimble, skipped over 
half with impunity, and those who were tardy, had a smart 
application now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed,. 
or help them over a tall word. Books were flnng aside, with- 
out being put away on the shelves; inkstands were over- 
turned^ benches thrown down^ and the whole school was 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 287 

turned loose an hour before the usual time; bursting forth 
like a legion of young imps,, yelping and racketing about the 
green, in joy at their early emancipation. 

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour 
at his toilet;, brushing and furbishing up his best, and in- 
deed only suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit 
of broken looking glass, that hung up in the schoolhouse. 
That he might make his appearance before his mistress in 
the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the far- 
mer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutch- 
man, of the name of Hans Van Eipper, and thus gallantly 
mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adven- 
tures. But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic 
story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my 
hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken- 
down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but 
his vieiousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck 
and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were 
tangled and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil, 
and was glaring and spectral, but the other had the gleam of 
a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle 
in his day, if we may judge from his name, which was Gun- 
powder. He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his mas- 
ter's, the choleric Van Eipper, who was a furious rider, and 
had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the 
animal; for, old and broken-down as he looked, there was 
more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in 
the country. 

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode 
with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the 
pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grass- 
hoppers'; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, 
like a scepter, and as the horse jogged on, the motion of his 
arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small 
wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip 
of forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat 
fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the appear- 
ance of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled out of the 
gate of Hans Van Eipper, and it was altogether such an appa- 
rition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight. 

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was 
clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery 
which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The 



288 THE 8KETOH-B0OK. 

forests had put on their sober brown and yellow^ while some 
trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into 
brilHant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files 
of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air; 
the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of 
beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail 
at intervals from the neighboring stubble field. 

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In 
the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping and 
frolicking, from bush to bush, and tree to tree, capricious 
from the very profusion and variety around them. There 
was the honest cock-robin, the favorite game of stripling 
sportsmen, with its loud querulous note, and the twittering 
blackbirds flying in sable clouds; and the golden winged 
woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, 
and splendid plumage; and the cedar-bird, with its red-tipt 
wings and yellow-tipt tail, and its little monteiro cap of 
feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay 
light blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chat- 
tering, nodding, and bobbing, and bowing, and pretending to 
be on good terms with every songster of the grove. 

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to 
every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight 
over the treasures of jolly autunm. On all sides he beheld 
vast store of apples, some hanging in oppressive opulence on 
the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the 
market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. 
Faxther on he beheld great fields of Indian com, with its 
golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out 
the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding; and the yellow 
pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round 
bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most 
luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat 
fields, breathing the odor of the bee-hive, and as he beheld 
them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slap- 
jacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by 
the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel. 

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and 
" sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a 
range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest 
scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled 
his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of the 
Tappaan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here 



*tHE LEGEND OF BLEEPY HOLLOW. 289 

and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue 
shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated 
in the sky, without a breath of air to move them. The hori- 
zon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure 
apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid- 
heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the 
precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving 
greater depth to the dark gray and purple of their rocky sides. 
A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down 
with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and 
as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it 
seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air. 

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of 
the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride 
and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare 
leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue 
stockings, huge shoes, and magniflcent pewter buckles. 
Their brisk, withered little dames, in close crimped caps, 
long-waisted gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and 
pin-cushions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. 
Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, except^ 
ing where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, 
gave symptoms of city innovations. The sons, in short 
square-skirted coats, with rows of stupendous brass buttons, 
and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, 
especially if they could procure an eelskin for the purpose, it 
being esteemed throughout the country, as a potent nourisher 
and strengthener of the hair. 

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having 
come to the gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a 
creature like himself, full of mettle and mischief, and which 
no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted 
for preferring vicious animals given to all kinds of tricks 
which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held 
a tractable well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit. 

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that 
burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the 
state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion, l^ot those of the bevy 
of buxom lasses, with their luxurious display of red and white; 
but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea table, 
in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters 
of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known 
only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the 



290 TB£1 BKETCfS-BOuK. 

doughty doughnut, the tender oly-koek, and the crisp and 
crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes 
and honey cakes, and the whole family of calces. And thea 
there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies, be- 
sides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable 
dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and 
quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; 
together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledy- 
piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the 
motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst 
— Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss 
this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with 
my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a 
hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty. 

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated 
in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose 
spirits rose with eating, as some men's do with drink. He 
could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, 
and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be 
lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and 
splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back 
upon the old schoolhouse; snap his fingers in the face of Hans 
Van Eipper, and every other niggardly patron, and kick any 
itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him 
comrade! 

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with 
a face dilated with content and good humor, round and jolly 
as the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, 
but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap 
on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to 
" fall to, and help themselves." 

And now the sound of the music from the common room, 
or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old 
gray-headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of 
the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instru- 
ment was as old and battered as himself. The greater part 
of the time he scraped away on two or three strings, accom- 
panying every movement of the bow with a motion of the 
head; bowing almost to the ground, and stamping with his 
foot whenever a fresh couple were to start. 

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon 
his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fiber about him was idle; 
and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and 



THE LEGEND O'J" SLEErr HOLLOW. 291 

clattering about the room, you would have thought St. Vitus 
himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before 
you in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes; 
who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and 
the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black 
faces at every door and window; gazing with delight at the 
scene; rolling their white eyeballs, and showing grinning 
rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the fiogger of 
urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? the lady of 
his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously 
in reply to all his amorous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely 
smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one 
corner. 

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a 
knot of the sager folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smok- 
ing at one end of the piazza, gossiping over former times, and 
drawling out long stories about the war. 

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, 
was one of those highly favored places which abound with 
chronicle and great men. The British and American line 
had run near it during the war; it had, therefore, been the 
scene of marauding, and infested with refugees, cowboys, 
and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had 
elapsed to enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a 
little becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recol- 
lection, to make himself the hero of every exploit. 

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue- 
bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate 
with an old iron nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only 
that his gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an 
old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a myn- 
heer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White- 
plains, being an excellent master of defense, parried a musket 
ball with a small sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it 
whiz round the blade, and glance off at the hilt; in proof of 
which he was ready at any time to show the sword, with the 
hilt a little bent. There were several more that had been 
equally great in the field, not one of whom but was persuaded 
that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war to a 
happy termination. 

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and appa- 
ritions that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legend- 
ary treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive 



292 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

best in these sheltered, long-settled retreats; bnt are trampled 
Tinder foot, by the shifting throng that forms the population 
of most of our country places. Besides, there is no en- 
couragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have 
scarcely had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves 
in their graves, before their surviving friends have traveled 
away from the neighborhood: so that when they turn out at 
night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance left to 
call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear 
of ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communities. 

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of super- 
natural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the 
vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the 
very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed 
forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the 
land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at 
Van Tassel's, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and 
wonderful legends. Many dismal tales were told about 
funeral trains, and mourning cries and wailings heard and 
seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre 
was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some men- 
tion was made also of the woman in white, that haunted the 
dark glen at Eaven Eock, and was often heard to shriek on 
winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the 
snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon 
the favorite specter of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, 
who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the coun- 
try; and, it is said, tethered his horse nightly among the 
graves in the churchyard. 

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to 
have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands 
on a knoll, surrounded by locust trees and lofty elms, from 
among which its decent, whitewashed walls shine modestly 
forth, like Christian purity, beaming through the shades of 
retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet 
of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may 
be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon this 
grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so 
quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might 
rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide 
woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken 
rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of 
the stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown a 



TEE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 293 

wooden bridge; the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, 
were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom 
about it, even in the daytime; but occasioned a fearful dark- 
ness at night. Such was one of the favorite haunts of the 
Headless Horseman, and the place where he was most fre- 
quently encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a 
most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the horseman 
returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged 
to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and 
brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge; 
when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old 
Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree tops 
with a clap of thunder. 

This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvelous 
adventures of Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping 
Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed, that on returning 
one night from the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had 
been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he offered to 
race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it 
too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just 
as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and 
vanished in a flash of fire. 

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which 
men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only 
now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a 
pipe, sunk deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in 
kind with large extracts from his invaluable author. Cotton 
Mather, and added many marvelous events that had taken 
place in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights 
which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow. 

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gath- 
ered together their families in their wagons, and were heard 
for some time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the 
distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions be- 
hind their favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, 
mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent 
woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter, until they gradually 
died away — and the late scene of noise and frolic was all 
silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, accord- 
ing to the custom of country lovers, to have a Ute-d-tete with 
the heiress; fully convinced that he was now on the high 
road to success. What passed at this interview I will not 
pretend to say, for in fact I do not know. Something, how- 



294 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

ever, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied 
forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate 
and chapf alien — oh, these women! these women! Could that 
girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was 
her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to 
secure her conquest of his rival? Heaven only knows, not I! 
— let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one 
who had been sacking a henroost, rather than a fair lady's 
heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the 
scene of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he 
went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and 
kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from the com- 
fortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming 
of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy 
and clover. 

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy- 
hearted and crestfallen, pursued his travel homeward, along 
the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and 
which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The 
hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappaan 
Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here 
and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor 
under the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could 
even hear the barking of the watchdog from the opposite 
shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as onl}^ 
to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion 
of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a 
cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from 
some farmhouse, away among the hills — but it was like a 
dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near 
him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or 
perhaps the gutteral twang of a bullfrog from a neighboring 
marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably, and turning suddenly 
in his bed. 

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in 
the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. 
The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink 
deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them 
from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He 
was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of 
the scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the center 
of the road stood an enormous tulip tree, which towered 
like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood. 



rHE LEGEND OF 8LEEPT HOLLOW. 295 

and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and 
fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, 
twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the 
air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortu- 
nate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was 
universally known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The 
common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and 
superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill- 
starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights, 
and doleful lamentations, told concerning it. 

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whis- 
tle; he thought his whistle was answered: it was but a blast 
sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he ap- 
proached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, 
hanging in the midst of the tree; he paused, and ceased whis- 
tling; but on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a 
place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the 
w^hite wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan — his teeth 
chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle: it was but 
the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were 
swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, 
but new perils lay before him. 

About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook 
crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded 
glen, known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough 
logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. 
On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, 
a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape- 
vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge, 
was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the 
unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of 
those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed 
who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a 
haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of a schoolboy 
who has to pass it alone after dark. 

As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he 
summoned up, however, all his resohition, gave his horse 
half a score of kicks in the ribs and attempted to dash briskly 
across the bridge; but instead of starting forward, the per- 
verse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside 
against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the 
delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily 
with the contrary foot: it was all in vain; his steed started. 



296 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the 
road into a thicket of brambles and alder bushes. The school- 
master now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling 
ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and 
snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with a sud- 
denness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head. 
Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge 
caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of 
the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something 
huge, misshapen, black and towering. It stirred not, but 
seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster 
ready to spring upon the traveler. 

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head 
with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was 
now too late; and besides, what chance was there of escap- 
ing ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the 
wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of 
courage, he demanded in stammering accents — " Who are 
you? " He received no reply. He repeated his demand in 
a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once 
more he cudgeled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and 
shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into 
a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put 
itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound, stood at 
once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark 
and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in 
some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman 
of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of power- 
ful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, 
but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the 
blind side of old Gunpowder, who had novv^ got over his fright 
and waywardness. 

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight com- 
panion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom 
Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed, 
in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, 
quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, 
and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind — the other did 
the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored 
to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the 
roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave. There 
was something in the moody and dogged silence of this 
pertinacious companion, that was mysterious and appalling. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, 297 

It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising 
ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveler in. 
relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a 
cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck, on perceiving that he was 
headless! but his horror was still more increased, on observing 
that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, 
was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle! His 
terror rose to desperation; he reigned a shower of kicks and 
blows upon Gunpowder, hoping, by a sudden movement, to 
give his companion the slip — but the specter started full jump 
with him. Away, then, they dashed through thick and thin; 
stones flying and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod's 
flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long 
lank body away over his horse's head, in the eagerness of his 
flight. 

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy 
Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, 
instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn, and plunged 
headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a 
sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, 
where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story; and just 
beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the white- 
washed church. 

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskillful rider 
an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got 
halfway through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave 
way, and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it 
by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain; 
and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder 
round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he 
heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment 
the terrors of Hans Van Eipper's wrath passed across his 
mind — for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time 
for petty fears: the goblin was hard on his haunches; and 
(unskillful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain 
his seat; sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on an- 
other, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's 
backbone, with a violence that he verily feared would cleave 
him asunder. 

An opening in the trees* now cheered him with the hopes 
that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflec- 
tion of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that 
he was not mistaken. He, saw the walls of the church dimly; 



298 THE SKETCH-BOOK, 

glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected tlie place 
where Brom Bone's ghostly competitor had disappeared. " If 
I can but reach that bridge/' thought Ichabod, " I am safe." 
Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close 
behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. 
Another convulsive kick in the ribs^ and old Gunpowder 
sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding 
planks; he gained the opposite side^ and now Ichabod cast a 
look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to 
rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the 
goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his 
head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible 
missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a 
tremendous crash — he was tumbled headlong into the dust, 
and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed 
by like a whirlwind. 

The next morning the old horse was found without his 
saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping 
the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did not make his 
appearance at breakfast — dinner hour came, but no Ichabod. 
The boys assembled at the schoolhouse, and strolled idly 
about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans 
Van Eipper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate 
of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, 
and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. 
In one part of the road leading to the church, was found the 
saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply 
dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were 
traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad 
part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was 
found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside 
it a shattered pumpkin. 

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster 
was not to be discovered. Hans Van Eipper, as executor of 
his estate, examined the bundle which contained all his 
worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half; 
two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted stockings; 
an old pair of corduroy smallclothes; a rusty razor; a book 
of psalm tunes full of dog's ears; and a broken pitch pipe. 
As to the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they be- 
longed to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's " His- 
tory of Witchcraft," a New Engla nd Almanac, and a book of 
dreams and fortune telling; in which last was a sheet of fools- 



THE LEGEND OF 8LEEPT HOLLOW. 299 

cap much scribbled and blotted^ by several fruitless attempts 
to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. 
These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith con- 
signed to the flames by Hans Van Eipper; who, from that 
time forward, determined to send his children no more to 
school; observing that he never knew any good come of this 
same reading and writing. Whatever money the school- 
master possessed, and he had received his quarter's pay but 
a day or two before, he must have had about his person at 
the time of his disappearance. 

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the 
church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and 
gossips were collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, and 
at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The 
stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others, 
were called to mind, and when they had diligently considered 
them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the pres- 
ent case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion, 
that Ichabod had been carried off by the Gralloping Hessian. 
As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled 
his head any more about him; the school was removed to a 
different quarter of the Hollow, and another pedagogue 
reigned in his stead. 

It is true, an old farmer who had been down to New York 
on a visit several years after, and from whom this account 
of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the in- 
telligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had 
left the neighborhood partly through fear of the goblin and 
Hans Van Eipper, and partly in mortification at having been 
suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his 
quarters to a distant part of the country; had kept school and 
studied law at the same time; had been admitted to the bar; 
turned politician; electioneered; written for the newspapers; 
and finally, had been made a Justice of the Ten Pound Couist. 
Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival's disappearance, 
conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was 
observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of 
Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at 
the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that 
he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. 

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges 
of these matters, maintain to this day, that Ichabod was 
spirited away by supernatural means; and it is a favorite 



300 TEE SKETCE-BOOK. 

story often told about the neighborhood round the winter 
evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of 
superstitious awe; and that may be the reason why the road 
has been altered of late years^ so as to approach the church 
by the border of the mill pond. The schoolhouse^ being 
deserted^ soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted 
by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the plow- 
boy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often 
fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm 
tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. 

POSTSCRIPT, FOUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. 
KNICKERBOCKER. 

The preceding Tale is given, almost in the precise words 
in which I heard it related at a Corporation meeting of the 
ancient city of the Manhattoes,* at which were present many 
of its sagest and most illustrious burghers. The narrator was 
a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and- 
salt clothes, with a sadly humorous face; and one whom I 
strongly suspected of being poor — he made such efforts to 
be entertaining. When his story was concluded there was 
much laughter and approbation, particularly from two or 
three deputy aldermen, who had been asleep the greater part 
of the time. There was, however, one tall, dry-looking old 
gentleman, with beetling eyebrows, who maintained a grave 
and rather severe face throughout; now and then folding his 
arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor, 
as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your 
wary men, who never laugh but on good grounds — when they 
have reason and law on their side. When the mirth of the 
rest of the company had subsided, and silence was restored, 
he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and sticking the 
other akimbo, demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage 
motion of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was the 
moral of the story, and what it went to prove. 

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to 
his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, 
looked at his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and 
lowering the glass slowly to the table, observed that the 
story was intended most logically to prove: 

* New York. 



rmvot. 361 

'^ Tliat there is no situation in life but has its advantages 
and pleasures — provided we will but take a joke as we find it: 

" That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troop- 
ers, is likely to have rough riding of it: 

" Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand 
of a Dutch heiress, is a certain step to high preferment in 
the state/' 

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer 
after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratio- 
cination of the syllogism; while, methought, the one in pep- 
per-and-salt eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. 
At length he observed, that all this was very well, but still 
he thought the story a little on the extravagant — there were 
one or two points on which he had his doubts: 

" Faith, sir,'' said the story-teller, " as to that matter, I 
don't believe one-half of it myself." D. K. 



L'ENVOY. 

Go, little booke, God send thee good passage. 
And specially let this be thy pray ere, 
Unto them all that thee will read or hear, 
Where thou art wrong, after their help to call, 
Thee to correct, in any part or all. 

— Chaucer's "Bell Bamesans Mercie." 

In concluding a second volume of the Sketch-Book, the 
Author cannot but express his deep sense of the indulgence 
with which his first has been received, and of the liberal dis- 
position that has been evinced to treat him with kindness as 
a stranger. Even the critics, whatever may be said of them 
by others, he has found to be a singularly gentle and good- 
natured race; it is true that each has in turn objected to some 
one or two articles, and that these individual exceptions, 
taken in the aggregate, would amount almost to a total con- 
demnation of his work; but then he has been consoled by ob- 
serving, that what one has particularly censured, another has 
particularly praised: and thus, the encomiums being set off 
against the objections, he finds his work, upon the whole, 
commended far beyond its deserts. 

He is aware that he runs a risk of forfeiting much of this 
kind favor by not following the counsel that has been liber- 
ally bestowed upon him; for where abundance of valuable 



S02 THE SKETCH-BOOK. 

advice is given gratis, it may seem a man's own fault if he 
should go astray. He only can say^, in his vindication, that 
he faithfully determined, for a tinie, to govern himself in 
his second volume by the opinions passed upon his first; but 
he was soon brought to a stand by the contrariety of excel- 
lent counsel. One kindly advised him to avoid the ludicrous; 
another to shun the pathetic; a third assured him that he 
was tolerable at description, but cautioned him to leave nar- 
rative alone; while a fourth declared that he had a very pretty 
knack at turning a story, and was really entertaining when 
in a pensive mood, but was grievously mistaken if he im- 
agined himself to possess a spark of humor. 

Thus perplexed by the advice of his friends, who each in 
turn closed some particular path, but left him all the world 
beside to range in, he found that to follow all their counsels 
would, in fact, be to stand still. He remained for a time 
sadly embarrassed; when, all at once, the thought struck him 
to ramble on as he had begun; that his work being miscella- 
neous, and written for different humors, it could not be ex- 
pected that anyone would be pleased with the whole; but that 
if it should contain something to suit each reader, his end 
would be completely answered. Few guests sit down to a 
varied table with an equal appetite for each dish. One has 
an elegant horror of a roasted pig; another holds a curry or 
a devil in utter abomination; a third cannot tolerate the 
ancient flavor of venison and wild fowl; and a fourth, of truly 
masculine stomach, looks with sovereign contempt on those 
knickknaeks, here and there dished up for the ladies. Thus 
each article is condemned in its turn; and yet, amidst this 
variety of appetites, seldom does a dish go away from the 
table without being tasted and relished by one or other of the 
guests. 

With these considerations he ventures to serve up this 
second volume in the same heterogeneous way with his first; 
simply requesting the reader, if he should find here and there 
something to please him, to rest assured that it was written 
expressly for intelligent readers like himself, but entreating 
him, should he find anything to dislike, to tolerate it, as one 
of those articles which the Author has been obliged to write 
for readers of a less refined taste. 

To be serious. — The Author is conscious of the numerous 
faults and imperfections of his work; and well aware how 
little he is disciplined and accomplished in the arts of author- 



V ENVOY. 303 

ship. His deficiencies are also increased by a diffidence aris- 
ing from his peculiar situation. He finds himself writing in 
a strange land, and appearing before a public which he has 
been accustomed, from childhood, to regard with the highest 
feelings of awe and reverence. He is full of solicitude to 
deserve their approbation, yet finds that very solicitude con- 
tinually embarrassing his powers, and depriving him of that 
ease and confidence which are necessary to successful exer- 
tion. Still the kindness with which he is treated encourages 
him to go on, hoping that in time he may acquire a steadier 
footing; and thus he proceeds, half venturing, half shrinking, 
surprised at his own good fortune, and wondering at his own 
temerity. 



TSE EISTD. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



016 117 678 3 



